Sydney forward Dean Towers says the Swans are working hard to ensure they hit this season running and avoid a repeat of last year.
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Towers was one of four Sydney players in Wagga on Monday and Tuesday, making visits all over the city as part of the AFL Community Camp.
The Swans lost the opening six games of the 2017 season, before resurrecting their season with 14 wins from their next 16 games to make another finals series.
They then bowed out in the second week after a loss to Geelong.
Towers said a strong start to this season is a big focus at the Swans.
“One hundred per cent, we don’t want that to happen again,” Towers said.
“It cost us a double chance come finals time and ultimately cost us progressing any further in the finals so we definitely learnt from that and this year we’ve got to make sure we bring our A game every time we run out.
“We can’t expect everything just to happen, we need 22 contributors on the day and that’s the focus.”
Towers, 27, enjoyed a breakout season in 2017, playing 19 games, including both finals. He believes there is no reason why the Swans can’t be challenging for the flag this year.
“There wasn’t any major changes to our list, we’ve got some fresh young guys coming in and that sort of livens up the whole group, having those young guys come in,” he said.
“I believe we’ve got a really strong list and our aim is to make sure we make those finals again, and progress further on than what we did last year.”
Towers has almost completed his sixth pre-season at Sydney. He hopes he has given himself the platform to build for a big year ahead.
“It’s been good, each year I reckon you become more used to what to expect,” he said.
“You keep ticking off the sessions and getting it done. I’ve had a pretty solid pre-season, haven’t missed anything and looking forward to trying AFLX for the first time and then we’ve got a couple of JLT games before the real stuff happens.”