In this week's Game Plan, Swans' defence coach, Stuart Dew, gives us the lowdown on what the team must do well against the Eagles tomorrow ...

Essendon have been a form team over the preseason, so after our disappointing draw in round one it was important to be able to bounce back in a home game. The boys' will to win at the end was really pleasing. Every player pulled their weight in the last quarter and we were able to get over the line.
 
Across the board, I think our ball use was a bit off at times, and that was probably a combination of Essendon’s pressure and some of our decisions. We’d like to think we’d get a bit more value from all the pressure we are putting on the opposition, especially early. We really owned the game in the first seven minutes but only got one goal on the board, so it is something we will be looking at heading into this weekend’s match against the West Coast Eagles. 
 
I will be hoping to see our defenders start this week’s game against the Eagles better than they did against the Bombers. During the first seven minutes or so the ball didn’t really come down, and when it did I think our guys were still asleep so they probably got a bit of a shock. Too many times when the ball came into Essendon’s forward 50 they were able to score. I think they were at 57 per cent for scores once the ball came into the forward 50, which is very high. That showed us that early our defence was off the boil a bit. The pleasing thing however, was at times you’re going to have bad days, but the guys dug in and I think a few of the crucial one-on-one efforts from Mattner, Smith, Richards and Grundy in the last half were fantastic.
 
The Eagles had a good win at home first up and it was massive win over in Adelaide last week. In fact, they hadn’t beaten Port Adelaide in Adelaide since 1998, so they will take a huge amount confidence from that.  
 
As always, we have travelled over to Perth early and will have our main training hit out at Patersons Stadium on Thursday afternoon, which I think is good in terms of getting used to the heat. The big ground holds no fears for us. We have had a really good preseason and our guys have played a lot of footy in preparation for the season.
 
Although the Eagles have lost their main goal kicker in Mark LeCras, it seems as if they have a nice spread and did accumulate a lot of shots on goal on the weekend though guys like Josh Kennedy, Andrew Embley, Quinten Lynch and Jack Darling, amongst others. It is certainly a challenge for the defence when the opposition has an even spread of goal kickers, and we saw that with Essendon who had five players each kick two goals the previous week.
 
Certainly one area West Coast have looked good in is their pressure on entries coming out of their forward line. The defensive efforts from their forwards has stood out in recent weeks, highlighted by Josh Kennedy chasing down a few defenders against Port. For our defence, that just means we need to be switched on. They need to realise there is going to be a lot of pressure in our defensive 50.  It’s just an awareness thing and having the urgency to move the ball on.
 
What I’d like to see from our defence this week is a more consistent effort across the game. In glimpses over the last two matches we’ve shown what we want to do, but we need to turn that into a full four quarter performance. As I mentioned before, our start will be really crucial as you don’t want to be in a position where you are always trying to claw your way back. It’s a lot easier to maintain good form than turn it around.
 
We have a good recent record against the Eagles, so let’s hope we can return to Sydney after Saturday night’s match with the four points.