Don't miss any of the news involving the Swans as we bring you everything from the newspapers around the country from Wednesday 2nd September.

THEY’RE virtually guaranteed a place in the top four, but Kurt Tippett says the Sydney Swans won’t be taking their foot off the gas when they host Gold Coast this weekend.

Victory over the Suns should set up a week one finals assignment against Freemantle in Perth, while the match also doubles as Tippett’s 150th AFL game.

Tippett says the Swans are happy with the position they’ve put themselves in, but a top four finish isn’t assured.

“There’s a lot on the line for us — we want to finish as high up on the ladder as possible to give ourselves the best chance going into finals,” he said.

Throughout his career, Sydney forward Kurt Tippett could be forgiven for wishing he pursued any number of other sports he excelled at as a youngster, but running out for his 150th AFL match on Saturday is reassurance that he made the right decision and a reward for pushing through what he says were some "dark moments".

Tippett could have pursued basketball, soccer or rugby as a Gold Coast teenager but made the decision to put his 201-centimetre frame to best effect as an AFL footballer.

He signed with the Adelaide Crows and played five seasons there, averaging more than 20 games a season. He then moved to Sydney as a marquee player, but in his first two years played just 12 and 14 games respectively.

There are no giants in Sydney. Apart from those that live in children’s books and are born big in the imagination. Out west there is a team of footballers who call themselves giants but they are wrong. GWS might live like giants but they pretend to be what they are most certainly not.

The other AFL side in Sydney are not giants either. They used to be when they fought like fury and threw thunderbolts that zapped the air. Hand-to-hand Sydney wrestled West Coast, mighty giants from Perth. Sydney won the premiership in 2005 but West Coast wrestled it away the following year. Sydney were competition champions again in 2012 when they were able to restrain a maturing Hawthorn.

Sydney might not have always been the very best but they have been resilient. Only once since 2003 have they missed the finals. It is a record of a club of excellence. They missed the finals in 2009 but it was a year of change that drained the side of its experience and knowledge. Half a team of premiership players left the club.

Lewis Jetta, Josh Kennedy, Shane Mumford and Sam Reid arrived and played in the 2012 premiership side but, in 2009, the balance between experience and youth tilted against the Swans.

The Swans now sit fourth, a win ahead of Richmond and on equal footing with Hawthorn. They have lost only two more games than Fremantle, the chameleons who sit six points clear of everybody.

Yet it is the West Australian duo of Fremantle and the Eagles that draw all the talk of premierships. Hawthorn, too, of course. They are on the hunt for a third title in a row. But for Sydney? Barely an encouraging word.