Swan Districts out to prove everyone wrong again in finalsFriday, September 5, 2014 - 10:05 AM - by Chris Pike

SWAN Districts was fully aware that it was written off coming into 2014 and also that given a disappointing last month that it might be underdogs heading into the finals, but the black-and-whites proved everyone wrong to make the finals and are ready to do so again in September.

Following the departure of Kyle Hams, Tom Roach, Wayde Twomey, Shaun Hildebrandt, Dayle Garlett, Charlie Cameron, Rory Lobb and Brett Robinson to either retirement, switching clubs or the AFL system, and as a result most pundits had the black-and-whites sliding down the ladder.

Swans have made finals the last two years on the back of a second last finish in 2011 following the 2010 premiership, but lost the second semi-final and preliminary final in 2012, and then the first semi-final to East Perth last year.

However, the black-and-whites put together a stunning first half of the 2014 season winning eight straight matches to set up their tilt at the finals but they ended up losing their last four matches by an average of almost 50 points to end up in fourth position.

That means that Swan Districts take on East Fremantle at the newly named ATOM Stadium in Sunday's first semi-final with the winner to go through to the preliminary final, and the loser can prepare for Mad Monday.

Despite the finish to the year, Swan Districts coach Greg Harding is glad just to be part of the finals with such a young team with the likes of Alex Howard, Ricky Cary, Brandon Jetta, Nathan Blakely, Connor Blakely, Aidan Anderson, Anthony Stephens, Nathan Broad, Jesse Manton and Ethan Hughes.

"We are stoked to be involved in the finals series. At the start of the year everyone had us down to win the wooden spoon but we are absolutely stoked to be involved in the finals series and you just don’t know what can happen when you throw young, energetic kids onto the field," Harding said.

"Probably 10 of our players involved in this game will be in their first full WAFL season and three or four boys will have played less than two or three games. They will step out into a high pressure and energy situation and that can only mean really good things for our club moving forward."

While the last month hasn’t been great for Swans, the black-and-whites have known of their participation in finals for some time so Harding isn’t too concerned and he is just excited for his players to have a chance of being involved in September action.

"We've known we were going to make it for a while now and our record has been poor leading into this game, but we've been working really hard to make sure that these kids realise that they have a great opportunity in front of them," he said.

"We have people around the club like Mark Piani who played 175 games of WAFL footy but never in a final. Some of these kids might not get another chance. We have a young kid like Connor Blakely who won't be at our club next year and will be in the AFL system, but he could go to Melbourne or somewhere like that so it could be his last chance to play in a final.

"It will also be his last opportunity probably to play with his brother Nathan who has carried our ruck so well for 20 games as a 194cm ruckman. This is an opportunity for young kids like Connor to step out on a really fun day, and important day, but it's really important that as a club we get the mindset right because it hasn’t been there over the past four or five weeks."

Swan Districts' last game of the home and away season was two weeks ago which was a 62-point loss to its opponents on Sunday, East Fremantle, but Harding is happy to enter the finals coming off a bye.

"Simpson is going to be a much better player after a break, Geappen has taken on a huge workload over the course of the season and will be much better for that, Nathan Blakely has been pummelled by big bodies all year so the break will be great for him," he said.

"Then young players like Connor Blakely, Aidan Anderson and Nathan Broad, and all those young pups will be better off for the break. Off our training, we've never trained better than we've trained this week so I'm really confident that we will be super competitive against a really good football team this week.

"When a young team is going through a tough period confidence levels can drop away and there's no doubt that our energy levels over the back half of the season haven’t been anywhere near what they were in the first 10 games, but we think this bye has come at the perfect time for us.

"We've got a lot of young players in their first season of WAFL footy and it's a build-up of pressure from a full pre-season, State 18s and all of those things. But this bye has been perfect for us to give young players and some of our senior heads a bit of time off."

One thing that Harding isn’t happy about and can't do anything about, though, are the knee and hamstring injuries respectively to emerging midfielder Blaine Boekhorst and inspirational captain and full-back Tallan Ames that rules them out of the finals however long it lasts.

"It's really sad to have your captain missing on such an important day and he will probably miss the entirety of the season until we make the grand final," Harding said.

"It's a pretty severe hamstring strain and it's a real  shame with Boekhorst that one of the shining, young lights of the competition has been taken out of the finals series because he's done a medial and will miss the rest of the season.

"The changes are enforced with Ames and Boekhorst coming out, but we've got some guys coming through the reserves playing some fantastic footy.

"We had a kid have 38 off half-back last week who has been a basketballer out of the country, we have Ethan Hughes can step in and play a role, Laurence Grescos is a young boy who has played some senior footy at a high level and we have a heap of boys who can come out of our reserves and even our colts system who we know can have an impact because they've done it all year.

"We are really confident that the team we put out on the weekend will be fresh and firing, and give a good account of themselves."