Swans reserves coach Jared Crouch said this weekend’s NEAFL clash with the Brisbane Lions reserves will be a tough test for his players.

The Swans reserves produced a dominant performance over Sydney Uni last week, running away with an emphatic 202-point victory, but the first-year coach said he expects this weekend’s battle to be much closer against the Lions.

“We’ve had some good wins against some sides we should win against, so what you really want to do is test your players to see where they are at,” Crouch told SwansTV.

“It’s good to play against AFL-listed players, and (Brisbane) are obviously trying to do a similar thing to what we are and to educate their players to play at the next level.

“It will be a great challenge for us.”

With travel playing such a crucial role in today’s AFL competition, Crouch said his players’ ability to cope with interstate travel will be closely assessed as they travel to Brisbane this weekend.

“For me it’s about watching their professionalism,” he said

“It’s about travelling as a team and about how they prepare the night before and the morning of, which our senior team does week in, week out.

“It’s about their game, it’s about their professionalism and it’s the whole package for these guys to be ticking all the boxes.”

The Swans reserves almost came away with an impressive away performance a fortnight ago in Darwin, before the NT Thunder stormed home to claim the points.

Crouch expects the Swans will face similar challenges on this weekend’s trip, and said he is confident his team has learnt from their Darwin experience.

“We won’t have the temperatures we had up in Darwin, but hopefully the boys have learnt from that and make sure they are very well hydrated as it’s always a couple of degrees warmer up in Brisbane,” he said.

Other than battling humid conditions against the Thunder, inaccuracy in front of goal was also a battle for the Swans reserves.

Crouch said he was pleased his team was able to resurrect their accuracy in last week’s win.

“(Goal-kicking) was a big focus for us,” he said.

“We got together during the week and did some training towards our goal kicking, and not only just the goal kicking, but where we’re having our shots from and playing the team game and if we’re stuck on the boundary line, get it to a better position and make sure we kick the goal.

“Nathan Gordon kicked 10 straight, Mitch Morton kicked 10 straight - but both did kick one out of bounds on the full so obviously they didn’t want to kick a behind to make it 10.1!”