Sydney Swans speedster Oliver Florent says there’s plenty of belief to be drawn from conquering the AFL’s pinnacle challenge – beating reigning premier the West Coast Eagles.

West Coast was on a mission to end a winless SCG run stretching back to 1999, but Sydney would extend the streak to eight consecutive victories in its first afternoon home game of the season.

The 45-point win followed a highly competitive month of footy, with Sydney having defeated Essendon and North Melbourne and falling valiantly to top-four teams Collingwood and Geelong.

Florent said trumping the defending premier would instil a massive amount of belief in the team. 

“It’s definitely an indication that we’re on the right track,” Florent told SwansTV post-match.

“They’re the reigning premiers so for us to do that going into the bye gives us a lot of confidence for the back end of the year. It shows that we can match it with the best and we’ll look to build on this game after the bye.”

The Swans fronted the Eagles without co-captain and midfield warrior Josh Kennedy (knee), but they would top the away side 140-137 in contested possessions and 17-11 in centre clearances.

Co-captain Luke Parker led the charge on his way to 15 contested possessions, while Tom Papley (11 contested possessions), Ryan Clarke (10) and Isaac Heeney (10) were also crucial to the midfield battle.

Florent, who finished with just four contested possessions but 23 disposals, said Sydney’s midfield ascendancy was critical to the win. 

“I think we just did the basics really well. We won the contested-possession count and that’s a big focus of ours as a midfield group,” Florent said. 

“We were really smart going forward with using the ball, we were able to bring our forwards into the game more so than in other weeks, and we kicked a lot of goals on the back of that.”

A season-high home crowd totalling 36,640 filled the SCG stands, and Florent was full of praise for the support. 

“Thank you for supporting us at the SCG today and right throughout the year so far,” Florent said.

“It hasn’t been smooth sailing the whole way through the year, but we really appreciate the fans sticking with us, and we’ll continue to work really, really hard on playing good footy.”