In this week's Game Plan, Swans forwards coach, Henry Playfair, talks about making sure the forward line make the most of their opportunities against Melbourne on Saturday evening...

Last weekend’s match against Richmond wasn’t a great day for us.

Although we’ve had a pretty reasonable start to the year as a forwards group, what we now know is that in this competition if you drop off a little bit, you’ll get taken care of.

In a lot of areas we were pretty poor, which we’ve relayed onto the players and is something to be mindful of going forward.

We went in with the aim to try and restrict Richmond’s ball movement, because they are obviously very good at uncontested possession and using the ball out of their back half. We tried to break that down a little bit, but that as a plan didn’t work for a whole host of reasons, and that was one of the main areas where we produced a poor performance.

We also want to improve our conversion inside 50. It’s good we’re getting the ball in there, but we’ve got to be more efficient. We’re in the top three in the competition for inside 50s, but not for goals scored, so that’s a stat were not happy with.

It’s an area that we continue to look at, and we’ve watched a lot of footage this week trying to work out ways we can improve that stat. It’s a combination of midfielders and forwards, so as a group and as a team we need to get better at working together and becoming more efficient when we go inside 50.

Obviously playing without our co-captain Adam Goodes is difficult, but it’s something that happens and there isn’t much we can do about it. However, instead of dwelling on it we’ve moved onto the next thing and are working with the players we’ve got. We still think we’ve got a lot of players who can play different roles, and while Goodsey is versatile, we’ve got other players who are versatile as well. Ben McGlynn and Lewis Jetta can all be used in different roles and we can mix-and-match what we do down there. Whilst Goodes is a frustrating loss, we still think we can get that flexibility without him.

There are also a lot of players who rotate forward and mid that can be an advantage for us, including Josh Kennedy, Jude Bolton and Kieren Jack. We’ve got a number of guys who rotate through that area and Kennedy was one who was pleasing on the weekend and kicked two goals in that role. He seems to know how to get to the right spot wherever he plays, so it’s good as the forwards coach to know you’ve got some guys who can cover down there.

Lewis Jetta is another one who has put together a really solid year. While last Saturday’s game wasn’t his best game, still his run and carry when he gets the ball is really good and he is starting to pick the right options. Ryan (O’Keefe) also did OK and played a lot of different roles and that’s the advantage, that we can use him for midfield or back, so his versatility is certainly something we really value.

It’s been a tough month for young forward Sam Reid, but the thing we’ve reinforced with Reidy is to work hard and continue to work hard. I’ve found that if you work hard at training and work on the things that are important, eventually they will turn for you and that’s what we’ve been reinforcing with Reidy. We’re sure he’s not too far off getting back to some form and hopefully it’s this weekend.

We take on Melbourne at home this weekend and we hope as a team we turn the SCG into a real fortress. We lost at the SCG last time we were here, so we’ll be looking to get back and make it really hard for teams to beat us at home in front of our fans, as well as everywhere else we play.