From the Coaches Box – get in first
In Cellarbrations' From the Coaches Box this week, midfield coach Leigh Tudor says the Swans have to get back to winning the ball first and beating their direct opponent
At times we couldn’t stop Hawthorn’s momentum from the centre bounce, so we’ve done a lot of work on that this week and it’s an area that generally we’ve been pretty good at - so hopefully it was just a one-off for us.
When it came to the match review, we didn’t leave anything behind and we certainly let the guys know about their performance, but they already knew themselves that is wasn’t their best effort. After the game you could see they were pretty disappointed because effort has been one of the things this group has been consistently really good at, so we want to get back to that as quickly as we can.
Throughout the whole game, I also don’t think we used the ball as well as we have, and not just the midfield group. We didn’t lead enough when the backs had the ball and then when the forwards led we probably didn’t kick to advantage enough, so we need to be smarter with our ball use. We just need to have a bit more poise under pressure this week.
We have a great opportunity to step up our game this week. Fremantle is a different style of side to Hawthorn and it’s still going to be a massive challenge for us. They are very good at using the ball and they’ve got a real system they like to play with their attack and their defence. While we know how they play, it’s another thing trying to stop that, so we just have to make sure we don’t let their good players dominate the game because when they do they win.
The Dockers have players like David Mundy and Michael Barlow and a lot of guys who go through the middle who are very good players. Nat Fyfe is another one who has had a very good record at the SCG, so there are a lot of guys that we need to watch. Having said that, we do need to look at ourselves a little bit and get back to hunting the ball and making sure we get first possession.
Hawthorn were really hard at the contest and got in first and they really did beat us in that area, and that’s an area that we need to improve on this week. We need to get back in and get first use against the Dockers so we can get the ball to our forwards.
At the end of the day, we need the majority of our players beating their direct opponent.