The Swans benefited from "a good learning curve" in a 37-point trial loss to the Coffs Harbour Breakers at Riverside 5, the side's captain, Adam Cruickshank, has said.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
In their first hitout of the year, the Swans went down 16.20 (116) to 12.7 (79) on a warm autumn day on Saturday afternoon.
Cruickshank said: "We really started to click in the second quarter and work a lot better as a team - everything started to flow a lot better for us."
Read also:
The most pleading aspect of the side's performance, he continued, was "how the midfield linked with the forwards".
"In the end, I thought we were finding our small targets really well," he said.
"That was probably a good thing to take out of it: that we got a bit of chemistry going there."
Cruickshank said that based on Saturday's performance, the Breakers were "probably a class above us".
"But I think we held our own and showed we can be competitive," he added.
The Swans, he said, "definitely" got a confidence boost from the match.
"They'd [Coffs Harbour] probably beat every team here pretty comfortably," he said.
"To play against better competition is always good."
The Swans will be chasing their first premiership since 2009 when the competition starts on April 30.
They backed up a grand final appearance in 2020 with a major semi-final berth in 2021, before Covid resulted in the season being aborted.
"We've still got a lot of the same players coming back from last year, and a few injured last year came back to play," Cruickshank said.
"So, it will be interesting is see how they can get back into it."
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark northerndailyleader.com.au
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter
- Follow us on Instagram
- Follow us on Google News
- FacebookTwitterWhatsappEmail