Sydney Swans coach John Longmire addressed the media at the SCG on Monday afternoon.
The Swans will take on the Western Bulldogs in their opening game of the season at Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium on Saturday night.
Here are some key quotes from the press conference.
Lance Franklin’s availability
“He’s still a chance. We haven’t made a decision just yet. He trained on Saturday and trained really well. He’s been training for the past couple of weeks and he’s been looking sharp and pulling up well. We’re in the middle of those decisions now. We’ll see how training goes again tomorrow. We’ll know a bit more before Thursday but we want to have all of those facts in place before we make that final decision on whether he plays – and Lance has a big say in that as well. It’s about looking at his total workload and understanding what he’s done and what he need to do to play this week, next week, the week after and the season itself.”
Nick Blakey’s debut chances
“He’s right in the selection frame – absolutely. He’s had a very strong pre-season. He’s been able to hit the scoreboard, create contests in our front half and really provide us another marking target, but he’s also good on the ground. He’s still learning the game and he’s still learning what it takes at AFL level, but he’s tracking along well.”
New-look side
“It will be very different. We’ve made some significant changes over the past three seasons. Our debutants in that time have played the most amount of games in the competition. We’ve changed the team a lot over the past three games and it will continue to change, which is exciting for us. We think we’ve added some fresh talent to our list over the past few years who’ve not only played but, according to the games played in that period, have played significant roles. We’ll see some fresh faces again this week and going forward. We really believe in giving those boys an opportunity to add to our team.”
Callum Sinclair’s fitness
“Sinclair was fine last week; we just didn’t want to risk him because our ruck stocks were a fraction thin. He’s been training fine so we’d imagine he’ll be right this week. The bonus of last week's JLT game against Gold Coast was seeing how Aliir went in the ruck. He provided real zip around the contest and some good jump at the centre bounce, and he found plenty of the ball as he was running forward. So we were happy with the way he went.”
Emerging young talent
“When I first started we were going through a period of losing great talent like Craig Bolton, and since then we’ve continued to evolve the list. We’ve been able to bring on some young talent a couple of times and we’re doing it again, which is important. We’re excited, hopefully our supporters are excited about it, but we still need to go out there and deliver. We still want to be competitive and we still want to win every week. It’s exciting to be in a position where we’re bringing that young talent through.”
