Swans chasing answers after fourth defeat

Apr 14, 2017 - 4:24 AM Four straight defeats to open the 2017 AFL season has left the Sydney Swans needing to re-write history to make the top eight.

The Swans nightmare start to the campaign continued in Perth on Thursday as the West Coast Eagles sealed a 26-point win at Domain Stadium.

It means last year's beaten grand finalists need to do something no AFL team has ever achieved and bounce back from an 0-4 start to make the top eight.

The last side to do it in the VFL was North Melbourne in 1975 who just happened to claim the premiership.

It is the the worst start since 1993 for John Longmire's side and although the Swans have been competitive, things still look bleak with their next opponents being the GWS Giants at the SCG next Saturday.

But there is some encouragement for the future with Kurt Tippett, Isaac Heeney, Sam Naismith, Gary Rohan and Jarrad McVeigh all edging towards a return to action after injury.

With Tom Papley having returned on Thursday, Longmire does see some good signs ahead but knows 0-4 is not an ideal place to start from.

"Clearly I'd like a better start than 0-4, it's not a great spot to sit," Longmire said.

"But it is what it is and we need to play better and more consistently.

"Part of the reason we played Papley was because we thought he could help us win, but we wanted the game time into him as well rather than having four or five come back at once.

"Some of those guys might be available for us next week but we can still do better with the blokes we have available anyway."

One area that Longmire was happy with against the Eagles was their work in close.

The Swans gathered 25 more hard ball gets on the night, along with four more contested possessions and having nine more clearances.

That wasn't enough to make up for their skill errors with West Coast scoring 10.9 of their 13.13 scoreline solely from turnovers by Sydney.

But for Longmire saw steps in the right direction ahead the Giants clash.

"Our ground ball has been pretty solid the last couple of weeks and contested ball is made up of a whole lot of different stats," Longmire said.

"We just thought this week in particular our hardness around the scramble was pretty good.

"But our execution wasn't up to scratch and we just gifted too many goals back."

Source: AAP