Ahead of Sunday’s blockbuster against West Coast at Domain Stadium, sydneyswans.com.au caught up with assistant coach John Blakey to chat about all things Eagles, life without Teddy Richards, the trip to Perth and Josh Kennedy’s milestone.

Almost a week has passed since the loss to Hawthorn. Was it difficult to move on from a loss like that or is the group professional enough to shuffle the focus quickly to Sunday?

That’s the business we’re in so we’ve got to move on quickly. Obviously we reviewed the game rigorously and made sure we learned from it, like we always do no matter the result or who we play.

At the end of the day we had no choice but to move on quickly with a big game against West Coast.

A lot has been said about Hawthorn’s dominance of late but West Coast has been travelling along nicely as well. Can you draw any similarities to the Eagles and Hawks? Are they just as damaging as the other?

Yeah, we think so. Eagles coach Adam Simpson came from the Hawthorn system, they’re playing very well at the moment, they’ve got one of the more potent forward lines in the competition and a really good midfield so there’s a lot of similar traits between West Coast and Hawthorn.

Obviously, the scoreboard tells you they’ve had a really good year so it’s going to be a tough encounter again this week.

What challenges does Domain Stadium hold? Is there much of a difference between hosting a game on the eastern seaboard and playing in Perth?

I think we handle the trips to Perth fairly well. We go away about three or four days prior to get the group together and get a feel for things.

Domain Stadium is a bigger ground to what we’re used to but that’s the venue we’ve got and we think the preparation going into Perth games are really beneficial in that regard.

Talking about a West Coast’s potent forward line – you’re in charge of the defensive half so you’ve got a tough task ahead of you in regards to trying to stem the Eagles scoring power all without the services of key Teddy Richards. What’s the approach?

The challenges are they’ve got Josh Kennedy who’s such a dominant forward and has kicked 53 goals already. Obviously, we’ve lost Teddy Richards so we’ve got to organize a defense that can stop Kennedy, and Jack Darling who’s back playing now and playing some good football.

They’ve also got some talented smalls in Mark LeCras and Brad Hill - those types of guys.

So we’ll definitely have our challenges this week. We’ll have a different look. Young Xavier Richards will be out there at some point, we’ve got Sam Reid who can go back and give us a hand while Jeremy Laidler is a cool hand and a good inclusion to have down there.

We think we can match up fairly well against them, even though we have lost Teddy.

On that…just how big of a loss is Teddy Richards?

Losing Ted is a blow but that’s footy.

A few weeks ago we lost Kurt Tippett and Lance Franklin and we still found a way to win. It’s a similar scenario this weekend, we lose one of our key defenders in Richards but we think we’re able to cover that with Reid and Xavier Richards, these types of guys.

We’ve got to find a way to win and that certainly applies to this weekend.

Josh Kennedy plays his 150^th career game. From someone who has seen his rise over the past few years, are you proud of what Joey has been able to achieve?

It has been an unbelievable journey for Joey. He was probably a bit unsure about his own football after only playing 12-13 games for Hawthorn but hasn’t a missed a beat since making the move to Sydney.

He’s turned himself into one of the premier midfielders in the competition. He’s a Club Champion, a premiership player and in our leadership group – there’s not enough praise give Joey.

He’s a pro in the way he goes about it and we’re really pleased he’s part of our club and I’m sure he’ll play many, many more games.