Speaking ahead of training on Wednesday, the club veteran said last year’s successful finish had inspired his team mates to push harder than ever to be part of the Swans’ best 22 in 2013.
“I think if you look at the guys who played in the Grand Final, and you can also look at the guys who didn’t play, and the hunger in our group for success is still there and it’s great to see across both of the footy teams,” Goodes said.
“We’ve got a lot of young guys pushing for selection that just can’t get a go at the moment because the senior team is just gelling.”
Goodes added that the pressure from below was what was driving the entire list this season and was forcing young players to step up and take their chances.
“It’s one of those things that you need at a football club, you need the young guys to keep pushing the older guys and you need the young guys to keep pushing the middle-tier players so they don’t get comfortable in their positions as well,” he said.
“You look at a guy like Luke Parker who has just taken another step this year and obviously last year towards the end of the year he was just a sub player coming on and playing that role for us and now he’s just turning himself into an elite midfielder.”
The Swans have enjoyed three consecutive wins to start the season, but the dual-Brownlow medallist admitted it wasn’t until last weekend that he felt the Swans were able to play their best football.
Reflecting on the 39-point win over North Melbourne, Goodes said he felt the third quarter blitz was a glimpse of what could happen when the Swans got it right on field.
“I didn’t really acknowledge that we’d kicked 11 goals, I wasn’t quite sure how many goals we kicked in that quarter,” he said.
“I just knew that we’d finally gotten things to the way we wanted to play and the feeling on the ground was that we were getting things right and we wanted to put a score on the board.
“It wasn’t until we’d kicked about nine goals that I realised that ‘oh geez we’re up by 40 points here’ so I think that was the mindset of the players at every centre bounce was to get back to business with our set ups and with what we need to do.”
With the Swans set to take on an undefeated Geelong side this Friday night’ Goodes warned that glimpses of the team’s best form would not be enough to secure the four points.
“I think on the weekend we played a good half, and a half of footy that we wanted to play, and it was good that once we got things right in the third quarter that we wanted to get right, after half time we were able to kick goals like we did,” Goodes said.
“That’s not going to happen every week and we don’t want it to happen every week where we just come out and play one good quarter of footy.
“We want to come out and play four consistent quarters and that’s what we’ll be looking to do against Geelong because that’s the only way we’re going to get the win on Friday night.”
Goodes said the Swans had also taken note of the Cats’ ability to take advantage of any lapses in form and stressed that the hosts could not afford anything less than strong, consistent football this Friday night.
“It’s amazing how much momentum plays a part in a game of football and to watch the Carlton and Geelong game last week and to see the swing in play when teams could just put four or five goals on each other is quite amazing,” he said.
“That’s one thing we definitely can’t allow is a team to put four or five goals on us, especially a team like Geelong, because once they get their tails up, you saw on the weekend they can run teams down and they can put scores on teams quite easily.”
