Sydney Swans coach John Longmire said the club’s poor history against Adelaide will have no bearing in this weekend’s match.
The Swans, who take on the Crows at the SCG this Saturday night, have lost seven of the last eight encounters, but Longmire said a lot has changed for both teams in that time.
“The teams are so different now,” he said ahead of the final training session this morning.
“There are different coaches on both teams, there are certainly different players on both teams, so all (that statistic) does from Adelaide’s point of view is give them some confidence coming to the SCG and knowing that they’ve played well here before - and that’s fair enough.
“But regardless of that, it’s just about what we can control as a team and what we can control is (our) hard, tough, pressure brand of footy and that’s what we’re going to try and do.”
Longmire expects Saturday’s match will be a hotly contested match up, with both teams rating highly in contested possessions this season.
The Swans are leading the key count after five rounds, but are closely followed by the Crows, who have placed a stranglehold on their opponents this season.
“(Adelaide are) number one in the contested ball difference in the competition, and they’re plus-24, which is ten above average on every other team in the competition,” Longmire said.
“They’ve been quite open in how they’ve spoken about how they want to play this year and they’ve certainly been able to achieve that.
“They’ve got some of the strongest contested ball players in the competition in (Scott) Thompson and (Patrick) Dangerfield and they’ve got two of the best key targets in (Kurt) Tippett and (Taylor) Walker, who are both really menacing on their day.”
Although last week’s win over the Hawks was arguably the team’s best win for the season, Longmire believes there is still work to do when it comes to playing out four quarters of football.
He said the Swans cannot afford to produce the same lapses in pressure against the Crows as they did in the first half against Hawthorn.
“We were happy with our pressure work in the first half last week, but not our contested ball,” he said.
“We are almost waiting a little bit to get our hands on it, but we did turn that around in the second half and that helped us get the momentum going our way.
“We do need to start better with our contested ball there’s no doubt, and that will be a focus we make sure we follow through on.
“I’m sure that’s also what Adelaide is going to try and do as well, so it’s about who gets on top of that the quickest and who sustains it the longest.”
If the Swans can produce a win over the Crows this weekend, it will be the first time the team has defeated Adelaide at home since 2004.
Despite the team’s impressive start to the season, Longmire is keen to contain the excitement around the club.
“There is no reason for the players or the club to get ahead of themselves, there is no reason at all,” he said.
“We’ve only played five games and I’m confident that the players know that they need to bring their hard, contested brand of football to the table again this week and that’s what we’re going to try and do.
“Internally that’s all we’ve concerned ourselves about.
“After five games we’ve had a good start, but it is only five games in and there’s a long way to go yet.”
