Swans coach John Longmire is sticking to the old adage that the best offence is a good defence.

Despite his team producing their biggest win for the season on the weekend, defeating Melbourne by 101 points, it was the Swans’ defensive efforts that really impressed the coach.

“I think the good thing from our point of view is that we had 30 more tackles and pressured to the end,” Longmire said.

“One of the biggest ways you can score is actually from turnovers, and if you put enough pressure on the opposition, that gives you opportunities to score as well, but you’ve got to make sure you get those turnovers and you’ve got to make sure you put pressure on the opposition.

“That’s what underpins our game and when we do it, we’re competitive and when we don’t we open ourselves up to criticism.”

The Swans finished Saturday’s game leading the tackle count 82-51 and the contested possessions 147-24.

Longmire said those statistics were the most valuable to the Swans, rather than the 21 goals they scored for the match.

“Every week we talk about our strong attack on the ball and contested ball and our strong work off the ball as what we can control, and what we aim to do,” he said.

“We tinker a little bit with our ball movement and we need to adjust it at different times according to what the opposition are doing and what we think we can improve on, but the effort is really signalled by our defensive  work and our contested ball.

“We still talk heavily about our defensive part of the game. We firmly believe as a footy club that we need to be strong week in week out with that.

“Our tackles are still a major indicator for us and our work rate without the ball and what we do as a team is still critical.”

With Saturday’s 16-goal win over the Dees behind them, the Swans now has their sights firmly focused on this Saturday’s challenge against St Kilda.

Longmire said despite the Saints current ladder position (ninth place), they are still a team to be reckoned with this season.

“I know that (St Kilda’s) stars are still playing and still playing really good footy,” he said.

“If you look at Hayes back in the line-up now, he’s playing really good footy, and Goddard, Montagna, Riewoldt, all their best players are still playing really well.

“The core of their team that has taken them to a couple of grand finals is still there, and they’ve got some really good kids who they’ve introduced to the team this year as well, which we saw especially a few weeks ago against the Blues.”

The Swans will also be looking to register their first win in Melbourne for the season, this week playing at Etihad Stadium.

Longmire said the Swans recent performance in Melbourne against the Tigers will have no bearing on the result this week.

“There are no secrets or magic formula to the form at each particular ground, it’s more that we keep reinforcing the fact that our attitudes and our starts (are right) and making sure we utilise that,” he said.

“We played there last year and had a couple of good wins there.

“We know it’s a venue that can have some really close finishes and St Kilda play really well there and we’ll need to be at our best.”