Swans assistant coach Henry Playfair discusses how the team will cope without spearhead Lance Franklin and the timely inclusion of co-captain Jarrad McVeigh in this week’s Coaches Column, thanks to Cellarbrations.
How much of a loss is Franklin? Does it influence we structure up in that forward line?
It’s not ideal, because he’s a great player and we’d love having him in the team. But structure-wise, it doesn’t really affect us too much.
I think we’ve showed this year when we haven’t had him, particularly in the last six weeks, we’ve been able to find other avenues to goal and been able to score well.
Sam Reid, Kurt Tippett and Isaac Heeney have all stood up so there’s now a lesser reliance on Buddy.
Look, we’d love to have him in of course but structure-wise it won’t change us too much.
Reidy and Tippo seem to have grown in confidence over the last month. Have you seen that?
Yeah I think so, they’re playing really well. They’re starting to hit the contest hard, fly for marks and take some big grabs which is a big thing for them.
Particularly Reidy who usually gets himself into good positions but just can’t pull in the mark but lately he’s been finishing it off.
And I think that’s on the back of doing all the right things at training, doing the little things and extra work on the track. As a result the rewards have been there.
From our forward line to Fremantle’s defence, the Dockers pride themselves on defensive pressure…most of the time relying on their defence to win matches. Are you confident we can penetrate that back half?
I think all we can go on is what we’ve done in the past. We’ll have a good look at what we’ve done, then have a look at Freo and back ourselves in with our supply.
In the last few weeks we’ve kicked big scores, close to 20 goals each time. Although that has come against sides lower on the ladder than Freo, the challenge in front of us is to test those improvements against the best side in the competition.
We feel we’re ready for those challenges. How it will go, we’ll have to wait and see.
We’re undermanned with Kieren Jack, Lance Franklin, Nick Smith and Luke Parker all missing. Saturday presents a good test for the team’s depth…
For sure…it opens the door for our younger and more inexperienced guys to show what they’ve got in finals.
Even our inexperienced guys have had good seasons, so they’re ready for the challenge and it’s not like they’re playing their second game or anything so we know they can play at the level.
Even though there’s an intensity lift in finals, we’re confident and assured they’ll handle themselves well.
Is intensity the only difference than a normal home and away game?
I think so – it’s the same game with 18 players going in as hard as they can.
It’ll be fast paced and playing in an intense environment, but nothing way out of the ordinary.
We believe our guys are well placed to handle it.
We trade one captain for another with Jarrad McVeigh returning to the selected side. That’s a pretty handy in…
Macca is massive for us as a leader, we’ll look for him to lead the way in the normal fashion that he does week after week.
That’s through playing well himself and doing the right thing for the team, steering the guys around and driving our performance.
