In this week's Game Plan, Swans football development manager Stuart Maxfield talks about how the team will tackle the tough trip to Geelong tomorrow...
It was really pleasing to see the team bounce back last weekend against St Kilda. I think it was an uncharacteristic performance against Richmond the week before. The guys acknowledged what the problem was & dealt with it early in the week. It was great to come up against a team in St Kilda, who prides themselves in contested football and their defensive work and really match them.
We face one of the toughest challenges in footy this Saturday against Geelong. They have an imposing record at Skilled Stadium and have not lost there since 2007. There is no doubt that if you train at a ground all the time, there are some aspects of the ground you know better, like how to kick goals from certain areas. Overall though I think home ground advantages are a mental thing and teams' and players draw on the energy from the crowd as well, like we do at the SCG, so hopefully we can start well and try and take that noise out of the game as early as possible.
Geelong have a fantastic list of players, not just their established senior players, but a lot of their young, up and coming players look like stars in the making. When you’re coming up against a very skilful team like Geelong, they use the ball very effectively and generally finish on the scoreboard, and that is an area we can improve on from last week.
Like last week, we need to get good numbers in contested ball, and make sure all our defensive mechanisms are in place and our tackling pressure is good. Geelong are a team that generally play a finals brand of footy every week. They implement their press well, and are always trying to put extreme pressure on their opposition.
We have included Brett Meredith and Luke Parker into the team this week. Brett has played just two senior matches this season, and the challenge with him has been getting continuity in his football. Over the last three or four years he has been hampered by collision injuries and more recently some soft tissue injuries, so he has struggled to string games together. This year has been a similar story, but when he has played at reserves level, you can see he is a class above the rest in terms of his decision making and ball use, but also in terms of his game running ability at that level. Brett was recruited to the club as an outside midfielder, as a guy that is really classy and a smooth mover who makes good decisions with the ball. He had an elite background in basketball, and a lot of the guys with that background seem to be able to move really well through heavy traffic. There is no doubt that he has the capacity to play at senior level, and he gets that chance this week.
Luke Parker is the other inclusion and it’s a great opportunity for him to come in and build up his minutes at senior level. He is a guy that has always looked composed when he steps up to senior level, but no doubt we need his hardness and ability to win the contested ball against the Cats.
It will be a good test for us this weekend as we continue to fight for a place in the finals. There’s nothing better than pitting yourself against good players and good teams, who you know are going to bring a finals brand of footy every week.
