Swans Senior Coach Dean Cox addressed the media on Wednesday in his weekly press conference. Hear what he had to say ahead of the Swans Gather Round clash with Collingwood on Friday night.

On Friday night's clash with Collingwood

"The boys have performed well the last couple of weeks and probably for most of the season to be honest, we've been really pleased with what they've done, whether it's the way we defend or the way we move the ball. There's been tweaks but we've been in every game and Collingwood in their last three weeks has been phenomenal as well, so we are really looking forward to Friday night."

On the team's next player up mentality

"That's something that we're appreciative of and the players are well aware that not one player wins a game of footy or will get you a certain part of the ladder. You've got to use your whole squad, it's a long year and we've got to make sure that those players are ready when they do come into the team. To their credit, whether it be Riley (Bice), but also Caiden Cleary when he came back, Corey Warner has had a phenomenal pre-season at the start of the year, as well as Braeden Campbell. So there's a lot of those players that probably weren't playing consistently last year that have come in and filled the void and played the role that they have to do, which is really pleasing."

On what they've learnt from early losses in the season

"I think one thing we can learn is what we were doing against those opposition was working, we've just got to do it for longer and what we showed for the first couple of rounds is areas of our game we needed to work on, and we were fortunate to be able to spend a bit of time over the bye to be able to do that as well. We're under no illusion, we need to go another step to play the opposition we're playing this week and we're looking forward to that."

On players stepping up in the forward line

"They are really important, I think we don't just judge our forwards off how many goals they kick but how they contribute to the team. For the most part, they've been good at that, Will (Hayward) has been down a little bit, and it was great to see him attack the footy the way he did on Saturday night. When one player isn't there, obviously the leadership void that Tom (Papley) presents - Will, Joel (Amartey), Hayden McLean really lend a lot to young players. When you're talking about Braeden Campbell and (Tom) Hanily, Cleary and Corey Warner, there's a lot of youth there that bring a lot of excitement; those other guys can settle them down, which is really good."

On the side's attack

"North were in really good form going into the game, that was one of our challenges to try and adjust our ball movement and be a little bit more potent off turnover, so we were able to do that. Having said that, we're playing against the third best defence this week so they're the hardest team to score against off turnover, from stoppages so it's another massive challenge."

On Logan McDonald

"He hasn't played for five months, so he won't be available for selection in the AFL team yet. That's where we're working through now, unfortunately, the VFL don't have a game either, so they're going to be training over the weekend and Logan will be a part of that."

On what the side needs to improve

"Some of the stuff we were doing off turnover, I think that was really important. Consolidate the way we do defend, and the other part, the three phases we constantly look at. Our contest work was better, certainly last week, the first quarter let us down a little bit but we worked our way into the game so, they're the main areas you get to look at, which is good."