Don't miss any of the news involving the Swans as we bring you everything from the newspapers around the country on Monday 24th August, 2015.

SAM Reid will have to take a back seat to Lance Franklin when the star forward returns from injury but the 23-year-old is happy to resume his role as the Swans’ Mr Fix It.

Reid ruled the air in Saturday’s 89-point thrashing of the Giants, taking a game-high 10 marks.

“I’ve felt like I’ve needed to do more for most of the year,” Reid said. “I knew I needed to perform better than I had been. I can still get a lot better than I have been but I’m heading the right way.”

THE Sydney Swans could have as many as four of their best, including Lance Franklin, back for Sunday’s clash against St Kilda in Melbourne.

As his teammates were demolishing the Giants, Franklin was putting in a solid running session.

“Lance ran and ran really strongly again, which is a good sign,” Swans coach John Longmire said.

“He’s had a week now of pretty hard running and it’s getting harder each session he’s been able to do and he’s been pulling up well, so that’s a really positive sign.”

Sydney are confident Lance Franklin can make a full recovery from injury in time for the club's finals campaign.

The reigning Coleman Medallist has played just one match in the past five rounds due to a back and rib injury but hopes are rising he can return this weekend to play St Kilda.

The bleeding from Franklin's damaged rib cartilage has eased, allowing him to resume running without discomfort. The superstar forward stepped up his comeback with a strong running session on Saturday and a recall is on the cards if he can get through ball work this week.

If Franklin returns to face the Saints, he will have two games to rediscover his best before the stakes rise in the finals.

THE Swans are still the big brother of AFL in Sydney and the Giants’ finals chances are over after an 89-point thrashing in front of a record 19,507 fans at Spotless Stadium.

Kurt Tippett kicked five goals in one of his best performances in red and white.

The former Crow bullied his smaller and younger opponents working as a key forward and as the No.2 ruckman.

His combination with Mike Pyke also gave the Swans plenty of drive in the centre and at the clearances.

Greater Western Sydney's season is over but there is still plenty of life left in the Swans. It was supposed to be the most keenly fought of the eight Sydney derbies but what eventuated was another comfortable victory for the red-and-white part of town, this time by a whopping 89 points.

They will see out the weekend in fourth unless the Western Bulldogs upset West Coast in Perth on Sunday.

He knew Angus Brayshaw was really good: he had been the best player in the game against Collingwood, by far. He'd heard a lot about Christian Petracca, Paddy McCartin, Hugh Goddard, Jake Lever and Peter Wright, too. Was he as good as they were? He didn't know. He hoped he was. He felt like the trip would help him form a better sense of how close he was to them.

The first sport Isaac played growing up was soccer, for two years from when he was six. His brother, Beau, played, too, most often in the same sides because he was only 15 months older and because Isaac was good enough to play up a grade anyway. Isaac was quick and determined, and he took to soccer right away. He would run the ball all the way down the ground, kick a goal and sprint back to the middle, tucking his shirt back in, pulling his shorts up and getting ready to do it all over again while his teammates were still giving each other high fives.

In his first 12-game season he kicked 68 goals. In one game, he scored 16. In another he dribbled the ball to the goal line then passed it across to the only girl in the team, to make sure she got a shot. Once he kicked the ball so hard it hit the opposition goalkeeper in the face; the goalie started crying because it hurt so much and then Isaac began bawling because he felt so bad.

As a cricketer he played up a grade, too, sometimes for two teams on the one weekend. He took some freakish catches as a wicketkeeper, averaged 216 runs, made a few representative teams and was picked in some rugby league teams, too.

Extract from The Draftees by Emma Quayle, published by Penguin, rrp $32.99. Also available as an ebook.

There is not much former Brownlow medallist Gavin Wanganeen has not seen in the game, so it takes something special to impress him. Sydney's next debutant James Rose has already done just that.

Rose, then a year 10 student in Scotch College's first 18 team in Adelaide, had won possession deep in a forward pocket, and using his powers of evasion turned his opponent inside out and goaled with his non-preferred foot.

A stunned Wanganeen, his jaw dropping, turned towards his assistant: "Gee, I thought only I could do this (stuff)."

That story was recounted by Rose's junior mentor Shane Radbone on the eve of the 19-year-old's league debut.

It takes more than geography, off-field bickering and a series of drubbings to make a rivalry. Some cutting on-field sledges? Now you're getting warm. Pinching Lance Franklin from under the other's nose? That's good stuff but it's what happens when you play for sheep stations when it really spices up.

For the first time in Greater Western Sydney's four-year history, we finally have a Sydney derby, or Battle for the Bridge, depending on your allegiances, where there has not been a need to manufacture gimmicks to drum up ticket sales.

Just take a look at the ladder. The Giants are not cellar dwellers anymore but still in the hunt for a finals berth, while the Swans are no longer top-four locks. Or if sports betting is your go, the Swans will not start at Black Caviar odds.

The Giants are expecting a venue-record crowd of 20,000, which, packed into the 24,000 capacity Spotless Stadium, will generate the kind of atmosphere rarely felt at their games. Such has been the demand for tickets, the allocation given for players and staff has been cut.

SYDNEY Swans debutant James Rose has revealed the biggest impediment to starting his football career — his mother, Susan.

She thought the game was too violent and only let him play soccer until he was 10 years old.

Rose was so desperate to play the game that he would sneak away just to kick the footy.

“The local team used to train on Friday afternoons and play on Saturday and I would go there secretly and Mum didn’t know,” Rose said. “Dad is the only one who played footy and he broke his ankle in his one and only game.”

Darrell’s broken ankle was clearly the source of his mum’s concerns but, after getting the green light to play Aussie rules, he hasn’t looked back and today the 19-year-old gets his chance in the local derby against the GWS Giants at Spotless Stadium.

The Sydney Swans have finalised a deal that will see them play all finals at their home base, the Sydney Cricket Ground.

In a deal agreed to by the club, the SCG Trust and the AFL, the Swans will play "home" finals exclusively at the SCG – along with all home games – and none at ANZ Stadium from 2017.

The Swans and the AFL also are hopeful that the deal can be brought forward 12 months so that the SCG would host any Swans' home finals next year – subject to negotiations involving the NSW government. The contract with ANZ Stadium has one year to run.

Swans chief executive Andrew Ireland confirmed that the agreement over finals had been reached for the SCG – where the club has had strong atttendances this year – and that the club would play all finals there from 2017.

"It's really pleasing for us – given that we're committed to stay here (SCG) for 30 years – that we'll play all (home) finals here," said Ireland, who handled much of the negotiations.