Harding wants Swans to go deep into finalsThursday, August 21, 2014 - 5:50 PM - by Chris Pike

SWAN Districts coach Greg Harding does not want the black-and-whites to just limp into the finals and make up the numbers in 2014 meaning that his team must bounce back and return to form this Saturday against East Fremantle.

Swan Districts is guaranteed of playing finals in 2014 largely thanks to an eight-game winning run between Rounds 3 and 10, but Swans have now lost three straight matches in disappointing fashion to South Fremantle, East Perth and West Perth.

Swans have lost six of their last 10 matches to only just be clinging to third position on the ladder no longer having any chance of making the top-two and desperately trying to avoid slipping to fourth and missing out on a home first semi-final.

Harding's team now just has the one game to go this season this Saturday against East Fremantle at ATOM Stadium (formerly East Fremantle Oval) before a final round bye with the winner between Swans and the Sharks likely to finish third and host the first semi-final against the other.

"We still have a long time to go in this season," Harding said on Sports Breakfast on 91.3 SportFM.

"We've got East Freo this week, then the bye and the first final so at the very least we still have a month of footy ahead of us and everything we do from this point forward is about going deep into the finals, not just limping to the first final and going straight out.

"We worked too hard to create this opportunity for ourselves and everyone at the footy club will work really hard to make sure we go really deep. It's not OK that we just limp there given we worked so hard to get there."

Given the way Swans started their season to appear on track for a top-two finish, Harding feels his team has done enough hard work to earn at least a home first semi-final this year and that would be a great reward for the club's large and loyal supporter base as well.

"It's a huge advantage and I think our supporters deserve to see us play at home in a final as well," he said.

"There was a fair bit of gloom and doom around the place with where we were going to finish at the start of the season, but our loyal supporters stuck with us especially early when we got over Peel and all our supporters waited on the oval to cheer us off.

"They deserve to see us play a home final at Steel Blue Oval and we'd love to provide that to them, and that's what we will try to provide for them by trying to get the job done this week against East Fremantle."

As for why Swan Districts' form has dropped off over the past six weeks, Harding simply believes Swans have stopped being able to use the ball well and kick goals at crucial moments which they were doing so well in the first two-thirds of the year.

"I think it all comes back to ball use to be perfectly honest. Early in the season when we had our periods of the game without momentum, we were still able to execute our skills off half-back and were able to pinch a goal to keep us in the contest," he said.

"But what we are doing over the last four or five weeks, when we have those periods for 10 or 15 minutes when good teams get hold of us, we're just unable to score. It happened against West Perth when at quarter-time we thought we should have been really close, but we weren’t and were four close to zero down.

"Against East Perth last week we thought we were outstanding in terms of application but didn’t put them under any sort of scoreboard pressure, and on the weekend against South Fremantle we came in at quarter-time five goals down.

"But Ricky Cary missed a set shot from 30, Jukes was the same and we had some really clear possession over the top of the 60 but we are just unable to hit the scoreboard at the moment. It's putting us under enormous pressure and we need to find the answers to fix that because if you don’t kick goals it makes it very hard to win games of footy."

Harding feels that if Swans get going for even a short period of playing outstanding football at some point on Saturday against East Fremantle that it could be enough to kick them back into gear, and give them some momentum to take in the finals in two weeks time.

"It comes from confidence and that's all it is. We've just lost a little bit of confidence at the moment and what we need is just a quarter to be honest," Harding said.

"If you give us a quarter where we link up, hit our two metre handballs, hit our 30-metre hit ups and rip some nice 60-metre balls inside-50 then all of a sudden we might catch a couple and the confidence can build.

"We are just turning the ball over horribly and we are actually playing some pretty dumb footy. We are making the wrong decisions at the wrong time and that's on the back of losing a bit of confidence, but we will freshen the boys up this week to make sure they are mentally really sharp.

"We just need to work hard and it will click for us, and when it does we can get back to our best form on the back of 10 to 15 minutes of good footy."