Harding looks at Swans' clash with Sharks as must-winSaturday, June 13, 2015 - 3:56 PM - by Chris Pike

SWAN Districts coach Greg Harding felt his team played as well as it has all year last Saturday against East Perth, but the fact that it was still a defeat means that he is fully aware that this Sunday's clash with a desperate East Fremantle at ATOM Stadium is a virtual must-win affair.

Swans might have played an improved brand of football last Saturday against East Perth on the back of a hard fought win against Perth, but it was still a loss at the hands of the Royals leaving the black-and-whites down in seventh position on the ladder with a 4-6 record.

That's why Harding is fully aware that Swans can't afford to lose on Sunday against an East Fremantle team hungry to bounce back as well under a new coach Brad Dodd, and coming off three successive losses.

However, Swans aren’t without motivation aplenty themselves not only needing a win to stay in touch with the top-five, but also to celebrate the 150th game of versatile big man Tony Notte that will see him earn life membership with the club.

"Our footy last week was probably the strongest of the year and with East Perth having Darling, Hutchings, Colledge and Newman it was a pretty solid team to play against, and for the most part we played some really good footy, and gave ourselves an opportunity to win," Harding said on 91.3 SportFM.

"We didn’t quite get it done, but we were quite positive about our performance. Over the last couple of weeks we've started to address some of the issues that we've been going through over the course of the year and are moving forward.

"Whilst East Fremantle's midfield is elite with all those boys that have played some AFL footy going through there, I believe that collectively if we can put our best foot forward again that we will be more than competitive. I'm looking forward to it because if you get to the point that you are 4-7, it's starting to get ugly so we need to win, and it's going to be a great game of footy."

Swans' best football this season including wins over Peel Thunder, twice over Perth and South Fremantle have been impressive, but some of the performances in between have left a lot to be desired and that's why Harding realises there's plenty of work to do now for them to make the finals.

"We've got to get going, there's no doubt about that. It's been a funny old season for a lot of clubs probably and when you get it wrong and don't quite play at the highest standard of your effort, you get beat," he said.

"We were really good against West Perth up at Joondalup and led by 26 points but got rolled, then we were really poor against Claremont down in Mt Barker and got rolled by a couple of kicks, and last week we had a really, really good day against East Perth but got rolled by two and-a-half kicks.

"All of a sudden you find yourselves at 4-6 and your season could have been a hell of a lot better. When you get to 4-6 and then you play against a side who has lost their coach and inherently those sort of teams bounce back the week after, so we have to get going pretty quick."

While consistency across the board hasn’t been strength of Swans so far in 2015, two players have been outstanding right throughout the year have been Ryan Davis and Nathan Broad.

Davis is a premiership player from 2010 with AFL experience so his form hasn’t necessarily been a surprise, but he has spent more time in the midfield in 2015 where all his strongest assets have been on show.

He's won a lot of the ball, kicked goals, been strong in clearances and is one of the leading tacklers in the game, and carried that form into the WAFL's State game win over the SANFL where he won the Simpson Medal.

Broad has been a fringe player in and out of the Swans team for a couple of years now, but has gone to another level so far in 2015 showing a capability of not only providing enormous run and drive off half-back, but shutting down some of the league's best forwards as well.

"Davo's Davo to be honest. We believe he's one of the best players in the competition and last week against East Perth with Lee, Colledge, Hutchings and Kane Lucas, he showed all of his class again against an elite midfield. He is playing with a real consistency at the moment," Harding said.

"Going into this season we lost a few in the draft again and we needed our mid-tier players to stand up again and Nathan Broad has been the shining light with that. He is taking on bigger roles so not only is it his accumulation and ability to give us run off the back-line, but he's been able to go to really good players when they've been in really good form and get the job done.

"Over the last three or four weeks, he took on Yarran after he'd been averaging five goals a game and he held Yarran to the solitary goal, he had Oakley-Nicholls for the majority of last week and two weeks ago went to Chance Bateman. They are three quality players and he continues to do a really good job defensively while getting a fair bit of footy going back the other way. He's one of the boys who has improved out of sight."