In this week's Game Plan, Swans midfield coach, Leigh Tudor, talks about the outstanding midfield effort against Carlton last week and the prospect of facing the depth in Collingwood's midfield...

I thought our midfielders worked really hard against Carlton, both inside and out. The contested ball and spread was good. Dan Hannebery, Jarrad McVeigh and Kieren Jack were outstanding in their work ethic in the midfield and we’d be happy to take that performance each and every week.

Hannebery played a very impressive game. He was playing on a good player in Heath Scotland for most of the day, so to kick two goals, was a great game. His work rate both ways was also just outstanding.

It was disappointing to lose Jude Bolton last week. He is a really big loss because he is an important player who is so hard at it, so smart, and fits into both the midfield and the forward line so well.

What we need to do now is train up the next person and train them to play the same sort of role that Jude was playing. We have players in the reserves playing under Jared Crouch who have been learning the way we want them to play, so with Jude out it means that someone else gets the opportunity to stand up.

We know we can’t replace Jude, and we don’t expect anyone to come in and do the exact job Jude has been doing, but as long as the player who comes in has an influence on the game, and beats their direct opponent then we’ll be happy with that.

Looking ahead to this weekend’s match against Collingwood, the big news of the week is obviously that midfielder Dane Swan isn’t playing. While this is a bonus for any team, the last time Swan didn’t play Collingwood’s other midfielders like Dayne Beams, Jarryd Blair, Scott Pendlebery and Steele Sidebottom all stood up. Collingwood have a lot of guys going through the midfield and they can rotate them, and do rotate them a lot through the wings, half-forward and on ball.

The key in the midfield this week is that we need to make sure we know who we’re playing on and we’ve got to be accountable for our direct opponent. They are a very good side, especially their midfield group as well as their ruckman Darren Jolly, who has been around and we all know how good he has been.

We’ll back ourselves. If we’re playing our best football and playing the way we want to play then we’re right up there with the best teams. We want to make sure we continue to play our best football against these top sides, and that will be our challenge this week.

We have the philosophy here at the Swans to take each game on its own merit. We have planned and prepared really well for this week’s game and we will continue to do that each week.

The guys are really looking forward to testing themselves against Collingwood this week at ANZ Stadium, on the big stage in front of a big home crowd.