The Sydney Swans reserves will face one the hardest challenges of the year this Saturday when they travel north to take on the Brisbane Lions reserves at Giffin Park, Coorparoo.

The Lions reserves are the clear leader of the NEAFL’s Northern Conference and have suffered just two losses for the year.

The last time the Swans and Lions met was in round 18 at Blacktown International Sportspark, where the Lions won convincingly by 68 points. The score line was much closer in the two sides’ first encounter in round seven, with Brisbane pulling away in the final quarter to win by 23 points at the SCG.

Swans reserves coach Jared Crouch said this Saturday’s match will be an opportunity for his young side to gauge their improvement against the league’s benchmark.

“It’s a good game to test us,” Crouch told SwansTV this week.

“We played very well two weeks ago against the Gold Coast, but Brisbane have only lost two games for the year and are playing some really good football.

“It’s a really great opportunity for our youngsters to continue to improve and to continue to put their names up there and possibly gain senior selection if they play well in games like these ones.”

Crouch said the Lions had been fortunate with injuries this season and were likely to name an experienced side this weekend against the Swans.

“They are on a different spectrum to us in that we’ve had a stack of injuries, so we’ve been very young, with some of our young players even playing seniors,” he said.

“We played them about four weeks ago and chatting to the Brisbane Lions guys, they only had about two injuries at that stage.

“They do have the ability to have that good mix of youth and experience.”

With the likes of Jesse White, Jed Lamb, Tom Mitchell, Brandon Jack and Harry Cunningham all likely to be in the mix for senior selection again this weekend, the depth of Crouch’s team will again be put to the test this week.

In their absence, Crouch highlighted rookie midfielder Dan Robinson as one of the stand-out performers for the reserves over the last few weeks, particularly in the team’s last match against the Gold Coast Suns reserves at Metricon Stadium.

“Someone who has been in some very good form of late is Dan Robinson, who is another rookie player through the Swans Academy,” Crouch said.

“At different stages we’ve had ruckmen, we haven’t had ruckmen, we’ve had midfielders, we haven’t had midfielders, and last week against the Gold Coast, with Harry Cunningham going over to Perth and Harry Marsh and Jake Lloyd out, he was the only Swans’ listed midfielder on the weekend.

“He managed to get a couple of the top-up Swans Academy players to listen to him and to stick to the structures and we had a good result.”

Recently elevated player Shane Biggs has also been a consistent performer for the Swans reserves both in defence and in the midfield for the team.

“As John (Longmire) has mentioned, we might have a record for the number of rookies that have been elevated and three of them have played (senior football) already,” Crouch said.

“Shane Biggs is another one of those players who have been very consistent for us in defence and has provided lots of run and carry.

“It is a very young defensive group and I don’t think anyone has played over two years there with Alex Brown, Jordan Lockyer, Matthew Dick, Xavier Richards and Shane Biggs down there, so they are very young, but are playing well together.”