The Swans will travel to Melbourne this weekend for a Saturday night clash against North Melbourne. Hear from Senior Coach Dean Cox as he addresses the media in his weekly press conference. 

On North Melbourne

"That's the part with North as well, is that they have a lot of high-end talent, they've spent a lot of time at the draft.

"They've added some experience around it, but their young core group is as talented as anyone, when you talk about LDU (Luke Davies-Uniacke), McKercher, you can go through the list, Powell, Phillips, but they are top-end talent, and one thing they're starting to see is that they've had a coach there for a couple of years that's obviously built a system but also enhanced their talent.

"That's one thing where you've seen them do what they have in games, be in games for long times or perform really well in those games."

On coming up against Luke Parker this weekend

"Luke's been an amazing servant of this football club, so the ability to be able to spend some time with Luke through that period and what he contributed was really integral to the success of the footy club and also the way the footy club's been built.

"So it'll be different, he's played some really good footy at North as well, so he's just one piece that we've got to look out for. "

On Callum Mills

"The thing with Callum is he's turned the corner dramatically the last four or five days, he had a really good session on Tuesday on the training deck and pulled up really well.

"He has had a tough two years, so for him, he understands what he's got to do, now it's just about hopefully his body allowing him to do that."

On Logan McDonald

"Logan's had a really tough off-season, so the good part is his ability to be able to play this week. He'll be on restricted minutes, but the part we want from Logan is that he's in our best team, he'll get a chance now to build through some match play over the coming weeks in the VFL program, he's been really excited this whole week.

"He hasn't trained a lot through the whole pre-season program, so for Logan, the first couple of weeks will just be about playing, whether that be forward, back, on a wing I'm not really concerned with that.

"It's just actually great to have him out playing, he'll be on restricted minutes or distance and that will build over the period. It's just great to see him, he's got through the full training load now and now he's ready to play."

On the young backline

"We've moved Tommy back, Sam Wicks has now been permanent at the start of the year, and we haven't had Harry (Cunningham) unfortunately. He's been a really strong focal point of our backline for a number of years and with the roles that he does, we understand he'll be back within a week or two.
 
"But from here, it's about trying to make sure that we focus on what we do have, you've seen Joel Hamling come in and perform very well, Riley Bice has been doing his role, so although the backline might probably might look a little bit different, their performance I've been really pleased with."

On North Melbourne ruck Tristan Xerri

"He's in unbelievable form and I think that for a couple of years he's been in this form. To be able to shoulder predominantly most of the ruck load, to win his share of hit-outs, but then his follow-up is something that sets him apart.

"He competes really hard, he adds another dynamic to that midfield group and he's a really important player, not only for their team but in the competition. So we're aware of his strengths, we've got to try and combat that as much as we possibly can and allow our boys to do what they do as well."