JARRAD McVEIGH believes the Swans' loss to the Eagles onSaturday was symptomatic of the rest of Sydney's season, where it's struggledto put together a solid four quarters.
While the Swans fought hard to get within 12 points late in thefinal term, the side paid the price for letting the Eagles swoop in the thirdquarter.
“We were definitely in the game at half time with scoreslevel, and then in the third quarter they kicked away too much. It was good toget back in the last quarter, but it’s no good playing just three quarters offooty and we paid for that,” he said.
“We had a chance, but there wasn’t too much time left oncewe got within two goals. Maybe if a few things went our way, the scores mighthave been different.”
West Coast got on a roll in the third quarter, kicking ninegoals, and ultimately that left the Swans too far behind. While Leo Barry injured his hamstring duringthe game, and Tadhg Kennelly was a late withdrawal, McVeigh doesn’t believethat’s an excuse for the Swans not being able to stop West Coast’s run.
“Nine goals is way too many too allow in one quarter offooty, and you can’t allow a good side to get that sort of a run on, as it justleaves too much work to come back,” he said.
“We needed to slow it down a bit and change the tempo of thegame, but we didn’t do that. We train for those situations all the time, sothere’s no excuse for us not doing it.”
McVeigh has been on the Swans' list for five years and hasfirmly cemented his spot in the midfield in the past two. As a tagger, helearned from the best going around last year, and has elevated his game toanother level this year.
On Saturday night, he had the job on the returning BenCousins, and despite the West Coast star getting a lot of the ball, McVeigh had26 possessions himself.
“My form’s not toobad. I was under a bit of pressure a few weeks ago and since then have beentrying to get after the ball a bit more. I’ve just been trying to run hard andkeep up to the level required of me,” he said.
“I haven’t misseda game since the start of last year, so I feel I’m developing all the time andcontinue to play my role for the team. As well as learning from my teammates, Ido learn from opposition players as well. I tagged a lot last year and Ilearned a lot by seeing how those good players go about it.
“I was on Cousins for a fair bit of the night – he had astack of the footy, and I just tried to get the balance. He had the crowd andhis players behind him, and is obviously a very good player … he didn’t look tohave missed a step.”
The Swans are just holding on to eighth spot on the ladder,making the next two games against bottom sides Richmond and Melbourne must-winaffairs. The Swans then face St Kilda, Brisbane, Collingwood and Hawthorn toclose out the season.
“They are two must-win games before some big games afterthat. It’s a big finish to the season, no doubt. We need to at least win most,if not all, our games,” he said.
“We would have hoped to be in a better position than we are,but our backs are to the wall now. We just have to play through it and playwell next week.”
