In this week's Game Plan, Swans stoppages coach, Stuart Dew, talks about the Swans rebound against Melbourne and the battle in the middle against the Saints tomorrow evening...

We were pleased with our efforts against Melbourne last week at the SCG.

One area where I was particularly impressed was our work in the centre square, which was probably the best it has been this season.

We were able to provide a lot of inside 50s from the centre clearances, which was pleasing as it was clearly one of the most important parts of getting the game on our terms. Our guys were nice and clean with the ball and made good decisions when they had it.

In comparison to the week before against Richmond where our intensity just wasn’t there, I thought we really turned that around against the Demons. I thought our guys really took the responsibility as a midfield to get the game on our terms from the first bounce. I thought we were too reactive the week before, and that allowed Richmond to get their game going and get on top of us.

We made some changes to our ruck combinations last week and I thought Mike Pyke did a great job of stepping up against a tough opponent. Melbourne’s Mark Jamar has been an All-Australian ruckman, so to play against him in Pyke’s first senior match for the season was always going to be a challenge.

Pykey worked his way into the team last year before being sidelined for a long time with injury, so I thought it was really good for him to be able to get some confidence from last week’s game. We thought his second half of footy really allowed him to develop confidence in his body work and from a coach’s point of view; he did what we asked of him.

There has been a lot of talk about St Kilda’s depleted ruck stocks heading into this weekend’s game. While two of their ruckmen are out with injury, they have the services of Justin Koschitzke, who is still a very good ruckman. He’s competitive, he can jump and he can put the ball down his team mates’ throats, so we’ve got to make sure we contain the Saints’ big man.

St Kilda’s midfielders will also need to be contained if we’re to be successful this weekend. They have a group of elite midfielders who can be very damaging if we don’t get on top in that area.

What we’ll need to do to get on top in that area is try to get on top in the midfield and work hard to win the ball before they can get their hands on it. Our boys have played a fair bit of football against the Saints’ midfield group, so I think a bit of pride will also come into it this week.

St Kilda have had a few weeks of good form after knocking over Carlton and performing well in the West, which is the toughest challenge in football. We know that we need to be ready for this weekend’s challenge and know we need to put as much pressure as we can on the Saints and deny them the ball or put them under extreme heat. The challenge for our guys is to do that two weeks in a row after our let down against Richmond.