Sydney Swans coach John Longmire says there is a growing confidence amongst the playing group following Saturday night’s 62-point victory over Port Adelaide.

The Swans currently sit sixth on the ladder, and Longmire believes the team is ready to push on from a solid platform built in the first two months of the 2011 season.

“We’d all love another win or two, but we’re slowly getting together some good patches of football,” Longmire said.

“We feel as though we have played some really good teams and been tested, which is fantastic, and to still be competitive in all the games I reckon is a credit to all the players.

“It’d be great to put together four quarters of real quality, consistent football, but I think we’ve played some exciting football at times as well.”

The Swans victory over Port Adelaide was Longmire’s first win at the SCG as senior coach, and despite a tight first half, it was the Club’s biggest win since defeating Richmond by 82 points in round 10, 2008.

“Ten goal wins don’t come around every day,” Longmire said.

“It really took us until the second half to get our game going, but then once the second half got going, some of our ball movement was really as good as we’ve seen it all year, which is a real credit to our blokes who persisted.”

The Swans have set up a mouth-watering clash at the SCG this Sunday against fifth-placed Hawthorn, with Longmire anticipating another tough SCG challenge against the rejuvenated Hawks.

“We know that they’ve got top four talent in their team,” he said.

“They’ve got quality players everywhere, and I think they’ve got some younger kids coming through that played on the weekend and did a good job.”

The youngsters for the Swans shined in the victory over Port Adelaide, with Sam Reid contributing three goals from centre half forward, Alex Johnson continuing to develop as a defender, and Luke Parker making a dazzling 15-minute cameo on debut.

Longmire said he was excited to test their wares against the Hawks, as well as the battle between both teams hardened veterans.

“From our point of view, it’s a great test in regards to some of our more mature players playing against their more mature players, and some of our kids against their kids that have come through the mix.”   

With Hawthorn set to be without key ruckmen Brent Renouf and David Hale, Longmire expects the Hawks to continue using Jarryd Roughead in that role, which could in turn affect the make-up of the Swans team.

“It almost worked in Hawthorn’s favour yesterday once they put Roughead in the ruck I thought that they really got some momentum out of there,” he said.

“It’s a bit harder to plan against (their ruck department) because we’re not quite sure what their set-up will be, so we’ll have to put some time and effort into thinking what their set-up will be, but also backing what we do.

“We (also) need to work out who plays on Roughead and Franklin in the forward line as well, they’re obviously two quality players.”

Longmire was pleased by the return of Lewis Roberts-Thomson to the seniors who played a similar role to Roughead as the secondary, versatile ruckman, while he said a decision on whether to play Nick Malceski this week would be made later in the week.

“(Nick’s) 70 minutes on the weekend, was as good a 70 minutes as I’ve seen for a while,” Longmire said.

“He’s a chance, but we need to make sure that we make a smart decision, not just a decision based upon what he can give us this week.

“Nick’s done a lot of running, a lot of conditioning work, he played really well on the weekend - is that enough?

“We’ll have to make that decision later in the week.”