Griffith coach Will Griggs will back his team to outrun Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong in Sunday’s preliminary final.
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The Swans’ 16-game winning streak came to an end last Saturday when they went down to Collingullie-Glenfield Park by 13 points in the second semi-final.
It suddenly leaves Griffith needing to defeat the Lions on Sunday to make the grand final, or face a straight sets exit from finals.
Griggs is not about to panic or make wholesale changes and will back his team to bounce back.
While respectful of the football the Lions are capable of, Griggs believes Griffith can run their opponents off their feet.
“They pride themselves on congestion, whacking it forward and putting the heat on pretty quick,” Griggs said.
“If we bring our pace and ability to move the ball quickly then I think we can find a few of their bigger bodies out.
“That’s been our game plan all year, to try and run and move it quickly. We believe it’s stacked up well against most sides all year.
“It’s just when you have 80 per cent of your team individually having their worst game of the year in a semi-final like we did last week, it doesn’t help.”
Griffith’s slip up at the start of the finals series, along with the club’s lack of big game experience over the past decade, prompted questions of the Swans this week.
Griggs said it was simply a matter of the Swans playing to their ability.
“I’ve said all year that if we don’t play our best footy where a very mediocre side and that any side can beat us on our day and Collingullie showed that,” he said.
“But what it showed on the weekend is that if you’re not prepared to work hard for four quarters then you’ll easily turn yourself out of form pretty quickly.
“In saying that, we felt we didn’t play well and we still led for most of the day and didn’t get beaten by much.
“So we’ve tried to keep things positive this week and back ourselves to work hard and turn it around.”
In bad news for the Swans, teenage on-baller Sam Foley will miss Sunday’s final with a hamstring injury. He is unlikely to return for the grand final, should Griffith be successful this weekend.
Foley has enjoyed an outstanding season and established himself as one of Griffith’s starting on-ballers before injury struck early in the loss to the Demons last Saturday.
The Swans held a selection meeting after training on Tuesday and are still undecided as to who they will bring in for Foley.
Nick Witherspoon, Dean Bennett and Luke Peruzzi are all in the mix to replace Foley.
“We’re not going to go and change our game plan on one loss, if you did that clubs would be changing theirs every second week,” he said.
“We’ve got to look at whether we try to bring in a bigger-bodied midfielder against Ganmain, or whether we try to bring in a quick one.
“There’s a few options.”
Griggs was pleased to win Coach of the Year on Tuesday night but said there is ‘bigger fish to fry’.
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