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The Sydney Swans will look to get their season back on track as they host a struggling Melbourne side. We’ll have live scores and updates from 4.40pm AEST.
The Swans burst out of the blocks this season, winning their first five games. It prompted some to consider them a genuine premiership chance.
However, in the last two weeks they’ve dropped games to Adelaide and Richmond.
They’ve also been hit by a six-week quad injury to star Adam Goodes, while Shane Mumford remains sidelined with his back injury.
Melbourne, meanwhile, are without a win in 2012. Their past two weeks have seen them go down to heavyweights Geelong and Hawthorn.
But the Dees, to their credit, pushed in all four quarters against the Cats, which is sometimes all you can ask of a young side. Mark Neeld also described last week’s first quarter against the Hawks as “the best quarter that we’ve played all year.”
Unfortunately, though, the Hawks game was not a four-quarter effort and the team went down by 66 points.
With Carlton, Essendon and Collingwood in the next three weeks, Melbourne might be sensing that going up against an out-of-form Sydney is their biggest opportunity to snatch a win before the bye.
But the Swans, who will be celebrating 30 years in Sydney with a commemorative guernsey, are bound to have other ideas.
The Swans have changed things up in the tall department, bringing in Lewis Roberts-Thomson, Mike Pyke and Tommy Walsh. The Irishmen Walsh will be playing his first AFL game.
The Dees have made a couple of headline-worthy inclusions by bringing in Liam Jurrah and Jack Watts, along with Brad Green and Sam Blease.
Neeld, who has publicly said Jurrah needs to work on areas such as defence and tackling rather than just attack, has been impressed with the forward’s form for Casey in recent weeks. After his court appearance this week though, plenty of eyes will be on Jurrah.
Josh Kennedy has been winning the ball the most for Sydney this season with 27 disposals per game, followed by Jarrad McVeigh with 22 and Luke Parker with 21. Lewis Jetta is the leading goal scorer with 14 majors.
Pressure will be on the much-hyped youngster Sam Reid, who has gone goalless in his last four matches.
Nathan Jones is the leading Demon ball-winner with just 21 touches a game. Mitch Clark dominates the goal kicking with 17 from six games.
The last time these two teams met was way back in Round 1 of last year at the MCG, which ended in a draw.