The Game Plan - challenging for spots
In this week's Game Plan, Swans defensive coach, John Blakey, talks about shutting down the dangerous Brisbane forwards last weekend...
In this week's Game Plan, Swans defensive coach, John Blakey, talks about shutting down the dangerous Brisbane forwards last weekend and trying to do the same against the Eagles this Sunday...
Looking back over last week’s win over the Brisbane Lions, I was really pleased with the performance of Teddy Richards and Heath Grundy. They had two big roles on Jonathan Brown and Daniel Merrett and I thought they controlled those match-ups fairly well.
Leading into the game, we knew that Brown was capable of kicking a bag, and Merrett had also shown that he was more than capable of doing the same. We knew that if those guys started getting on top it would give the Lions some energy, so to be able to manage those match-ups as well as we did was really pleasing.
We also accounted for the Lions smaller forwards quite well, with Nick Smith in particular lining up against those smaller-types. We were also lucky to have the run of Rhyce Shaw and Nick Malceski, who gave us some real drive forward.
Mal certainly took his opportunities when he came in as a late inclusion for Marty Mattner, which was great for him. We know when Mal is at his best he is a very damaging player and he set up some nice scoring opportunities on the weekend.
As a team, we’re in a really good position right now and it’s not just the backline where there will be players pushing for a spot. We’ve got Luke Parker coming back into contention and Marty Mattner, who missed last week, will hopefully be right for this week, so there are a couple of guys we can look at straight away. The good thing for us is if you go through the side at the moment, most of the guys are playing fairly solid football so as a club we’re in a good position in that we have guys challenging each other for a spot.
Looking ahead to this weekend’s match against West Coast, we know we have a challenge on our hands. Looking at the Eagles performance last week against North Melbourne, Dean Cox was absolutely fantastic for them and obviously this week he’ll go through the ruck with Nic Naitanui as well as forward.
The Eagles have lost Quinten Lynch this week to suspension, so they will have to bring in another forward for him, but regardless of that they’ve still got Jack Darling, who has really been stepping up for them this season.
I’m sure the Eagles would love to have all their forward stocks available, but to their credit they have never complained about their injuries and they have certainly put out a very good side every week. No matter what they come up with, I know that we’ll have a real challenge against them this week.
Our run home features five teams that are in the top eight so it’s a challenging final part of the season, so it’s very important to get a game up on the other teams who are challenging around the same position. With that in mind, there is no doubt this weekend’s match with the Eagles is going to be a big game.