Will Longmire roll the dice on star duo?
Ben Horne
Daily Telegraph, September 20

JOHN Longmire is staring down the barrel of the two most ruthless calls of his coaching career with Jarrad McVeigh and Callum Mills walking the fitness tightrope.

If the club captain and the NAB Rising Star are even half a chance of playing there’s a temptation to roll the dice for a preliminary final, such is their potential influence on the result.

But the Swans coach understands better than anyone that there’s absolutely no margin for error when it comes to soft tissue injuries and finals football.

Longmire was forced to red card Ben McGlynn in Grand Final week 2012 as the gritty forward fought in vain to comeback from a hamstring strain.

McGlynn has conceded missing out on that premiership haunts him to this day.

The Swans have stated that 273-game veteran McVeigh’s calf and the hamstring of Mills are as minor as soft tissue strains get and have refused to rule them out before Wednesday’s final training run.

Kurt Tippett (fractured jaw) will play at this stage and Gary Rohan, too, is a realistic contender because he has bone bruising to his knee rather than structural damage.

For McVeigh and Mills though, the prognosis looks grim even if Longmire was keeping his options wide open on Monday.

The days of final training session fitness tests are largely ancient history — Longmire very rarely takes a punt on someone who hasn’t participated in the entire week’s training, and McVeigh and Rohan were absentees yesterday, while Mills ran laps.

The decision to send McVeigh back out for the start of the third quarter almost seemed like the skipper’s preliminary final fitness test right then and there, and he struggled to last more than a few minutes.

But Swans football boss Tom Harley stressed that McVeigh’s brief second half comeback was being interpreted as a positive sign.

“A lot of factors go into a decision on Mills,” Harley said.

“He’s not the player you make a really risky call on.”

Search for balance
Richard Hinds
Daily Telegraph, September 20

MOST of the carping about the scheduling of the GWS Giants-Western Bulldogs preliminary final has come from Bulldogs members complaining they would be locked out of boutique Spotless Stadium.

We know the success-starved Bulldog breed who have been waiting since 1954 for a premiership are among the most patient and loyal of AFL supporters.

But, it turns out, they are not clairvoyants.

Predictably to those who know the reality of the Giants still relatively miniscule support base, the lockout of Bulldogs members did not eventuate.

Members of both teams who wanted a ticket had several hours on Monday to buy one.

Meanwhile the real victims of the AFL’s fixturing were nursing sore bodies at the SCG.

It is the Swans who have genuine cause to whinge about this weekend’s schedule.

From a marketing perspective flipping the customary order and holding Geelong’s preliminary final on Friday night at the MCG and the Giants’ preliminary at Spotless Stadium on Saturday evening made sense.

You only had to be part of the crowd of 87,000 at the MCG for the Bulldogs-Hawthorn semi-final to understand how that ground rocks for a big Friday night game.

Spotless Stadium — in the Olympic Park precinct — is far more easily accessible on a Saturday.

But scheduling the Giants on Saturday meant there would always be a loser.

The winning semi-finalist of the Sydney-Adelaide game would have to travel to Melbourne to play a preliminary final with just a six-day break.

And for the Swans, there could not have been a worse week to lose 24 hours of vital recuperation and rehabilitation time.

Injured Swans pair in hunt for shock preliminary final berths
Andrew Wu
SMH, September 20

Injured Sydney duo Gary Rohan and Jarrad McVeigh are attempting miraculous recoveries in a bid to be fit for the Swans' preliminary final showdown with Geelong on Friday night.

Just two days after it seemed the pair's season was over, the Swans are giving them every chance to play after receiving better than expected medical reports.

That McVeigh and Rohan have not already been ruled out is encouraging for them as the Swans have in recent seasons tended to make early calls over the fitness of players, though it will be a surprise if either player was to front the Cats.

Coach John Longmire did it in 2012 when Ben McGlynn ruled out on the Tuesday of grand final week after failing to get through a sprint session before training. By Friday, he was running at top speed without discomfort.

The Swans also made a tough call on Adam Goodes in 2013 when the champion was battling a knee injury that ruled him out of the second half of the season.

Rohan was cleared of major structural damage to his knee, which will be of considerable relief to the speedster after his rotten luck with injury. Many were fearing the worst when he was driven off the SCG on Saturday night however the Swans say he is suffering bruising of the knee.

Whether he makes it to the line could well depend on his pain threshold.

"He's got some bruising through there. It's quite sore but positively there's no significant structural damage at all," the Swans football manager Tom Harley said.

"We'll do what we need to do to ensure he recovers, we have training on Wednesday, we'll assess then. There's no definitive test, clearly he needs to be able to play Friday night.

The five: Swans who will make a difference against the Cats
Emma Quayle
SMH, September 20

The prime mover

Josh Kennedy. Shaken – literally – against Greater Western Sydney in week one of the finals, Kennedy was all the things he usually is in last weekend's win over Adelaide. Tough. Strong. Big-hearted. Persistent. Forceful.  With Luke Parker, Kieren Jack, Luke Parker and Tom Mitchell by his side Kennedy is one part of an impossible to budge team, and a group that will make Geelong work really, really hard to get their hands on the ball before even starting to think about anything else. His 42-possession game against the Crows included 10 clearances and four tackles. A goal was the one thing missing but that doesn't matter; the Sydney midfielders fill in each other's gaps and are always there for each other.

His lieutenant

Take your pick. There's Parker, who laid 12 tackles against the Crows. There's Hannebery, who gets them moving. There's Jack, who kicked three goals the last time these teams played. But Mitchell is the one that even bigger things could be asked of. It was he who dulled the influence of Patrick Dangerfield back in round 16, restricting him to 15 touches in the final three quarters after his dominant 18-possession first term, while shooting off 24 handballs of his own. It was after this match that the Cats' recruit described his new side's form as mediocre. The form of attention Sydney pay him will be fascinating, but Mitchell's ability to again play with such an unrelenting dual focus could give his teammates crucial space to do the things they need to do.

Jimmy’s the man to foil Buddy
Courtney Walsh
The Australian, September 20

Geelong must play decorated veteran Jimmy Bartel on Friday night, if only because his courage and match-reading ability could help foil Lance Franklin.

After a strong effort against the Crows on Saturday, the Sydney superstar needs just three more goals to draw level with Stephen Kernahan and Alastair Lynch in fifth spot on the list of the most prolific finals goalkickers in VFL/ AFL history.

Collingwood’s Gordon Coventry kicked 111 goals in finals but Hawks Jason Dunstall (78) and Leigh Matthews (72), and Tiger Jack Titus (74), are within reach should Franklin maintain his fitness and the Swans remain contenders in coming seasons.

Franklin’s four-goal effort against the Crows caught the eye of Geelong defender Harry Taylor, who is a chance to stand the Swan at some stage in the preliminary final at the MCG.

“We have a few other different options but I don’t think it is going to take one person to shut him down, because he has been in great form,” Taylor said. “He played really well again on Saturday night and looks in really good condition, both physically and mentally, and it is good to see one of the superstars of our game in a really good state and playing great footy.”

Franklin has kicked 50 goals against the Cats at an average of 2.6 per match in 19 games representing Hawthorn and Sydney, but this does not demonstrate his dominance. The only clubs he has a lower output against are his former club Hawthorn — he has kicked 15 goals in seven games — and Fremantle, where he has averaged 2.3 goals per match.

Injured Swans remain a chance
Courtney Walsh
The Australian, September 20

A training session at the SCG tomorrow will reveal whether three injured Swans are any chance of playing in Friday night’s preliminary final at the MCG.

Geelong defender Harry Taylor’s claim yesterday that AFL clubs have the best sports medical teams in the world will have more than a ring of truth should Swans Gary Rohan, Jarrad McVeigh and Kurt Tippett step out on Friday night.

Rohan’s season looked over when he appeared to seriously injure a knee in the Swans’ defeat of Adelaide on Saturday night, while McVeigh also appeared in significant doubt after straining a calf.

But Sydney coach John Longmire refused to rule the trio out — Tippett has a hairline fracture in his jaw but has trained over the past five days — and will afford them as much time as possible to mount a case for selection. Scans have cleared Rohan of a serious injury, with the 25-year-old suffering deep bruising rather than ligament damage, while McVeigh’s complaint is considered slight.

“Gary’s knee is structurally sound and the bone is fine, so he’s just got a deep bruising from the knock,’’ Longmire said.

“Jarrad has a really slight strain but we’ve had players play before with similar strains, so we’ll just see how the week progresses.

“It’s a bit early to rule anyone in or out at the present time, we’ll give them every opportunity. Saturday night you’re not quite sure how things are going to pan out, that’s why it’s important not to jump to conclusions too early.

“At the moment we haven’t got all the facts, but it’s looking more positive than it could have been.’’

Geelong wary of Round 16 repeat against Sydney
Sam Edmund
Herald Sun, September 20

PATRICK Dangerfield describes it as the game that left a “sour taste” in the mouth.

It was the Round 16 loss to Sydney at Simonds Stadium — the last time Geelong was defeated — that rocked the Cats.

Ten weeks later and with Geelong on an eight-match winning streak, the Swans return to Victoria for a preliminary final under similar circumstances to that emphatic triumph.

Again it will be a six-day break and again there will be multiple changes at selection, but Geelong will be hoping that’s where the history stops repeating.

Because on that July night the Cats bashed their heads up against a brick wall for two hours, only to be hit by a series of counter-attack punches that left them bloodied and bruised.

Geelong won the inside 50m count 52-43 that night, but were held to a score of 9.8 (60) — its lowest tally of the year — as the Swans piled on 15.8 (98).

The Swans defence, marshalled superbly by Dane Rampe and a rapidly-emerging Aliir Aliir, soaked up Geelong’s pressure and then launched a stunning 51 points from half-back — another season-worst number for the Cats.

Since that game, Aliir has gone on to average 8.4 intercept possessions a game — ranked No.1 at Sydney and fifth in the competition.