Four quarter effort secures win
A four quarter effort against North Melbourne today saw the Swans run out 36-point winners and stay undefeated...
Midfielder Ben McGlynn said it was his team’s ability to play out four quarters of football which secured the Swans fourth consecutive win of the season.
McGlynn, who contributed to the Swans 36-point win over North Melbourne with three goals, said today’s match was the first time the team applied four full quarters of pressure this season.
“The last couple of weeks we’ve been playing three quarters and just dropping off for one, so it was good that the boys and the defence held up strongly down there and it was just a good four quarter effort from the boys,” he told SwansTV.
“It is great that we’re putting on forward pressure and that’s where it all starts and we want to make sure that we continue that.”
McGlynn praised the performances of defenders Ted Richards and Rhyce Shaw, who contained Kangaroos’ key players Drew Petrie and Brent Harvey respectively.
“Teddy has been in great form this year and he’s carried on from last year and hopefully he can tick off the key forwards, and he’s always got plenty of help with Heath Grundy and Alex Johnson down there as well,” he said.
“Rhyce is always reliable in those roles and it was a great effort by him today (to shut down Harvey) and if Rhyce does his role it always helps the team to win.”
Click here to watch Ben McGlynn speak to SwansTV after the game
Speaking after the match, Shaw said he looked forward to the challenge of playing on Harvey, and was pleased with his efforts in today’s match.
“I’ve played on Boomer before and have had some good run-ins with him,” he said.
“He’s a fantastic player and is one of the best of all time, so it was really a challenge for me to play on him and I looked forward to that challenge.
“Everyone has seen Boomer play and he is one of the best, so to stop him getting the ball was the aim and I did that to some degree, he did get some touches, but hopefully he was under pressure and didn’t really use it so well.”
While Harvey was contained for the Kangaroos midfield, Luke Parker led the way for the Swans, collecting a team high 29 touches, including 15 kicks and 14 handballs.
Parker told SwansTV that he was pleased with the team’s effort to win the midfield battle against North Melbourne’s talented group.
“They are an up-and-coming midfield so we definitely had to watch them and watch our match ups, but to our credit we did a really good job in there and had a really good battle,” he said.
“They got on top of us some of the time, but we fought back and got away with the win in the end, which was good.”
Parker said a highlight of today’s win was Swans first-gamer Tony Armstrong’s first goal for the club.
“It got all the boys up,” he said.
“I think we were getting a little bit flat but something like that gets the whole team up.
“I think some of the blokes in the backline ran about 200 metres to get to him so it was a great feeling and Tony was wrapped.”
Click on the video player above to watch Luke Parker speak to SwansTV after the North Melbourne game