Chris Scott spoke to the media this morning ahead of the trip to the SCG on Sunday to face the Swans. Here are the key takeaways.   

On starting games well

We want to focus on the specifics and the bits of our game that we need to implement, to make sure the game is played our way. 
 
That's not always reflected on the scoreboard, but we don't want the game to look the way the opposition wants it to.   
 
It'll be a big challenge this week, against a team that has had the game played the way they want it for the whole season. 
 
We also have a lot of confidence in what we look like when we get it played our way, we would love to win early centre bounces and get the ball in our forward half.  
 
We would like to see pressure on the opposition so they can't control the ball, and that's a real strength of Sydney as well.
  
We think we have some potency in our forward half, and we would like to put the opposition under a bit of pressure by getting some quality ball in there. 

On the midfield battle against Sydney

While we have a healthy respect and admiration for Sydney's midfield, I don't think we have ever been intimidated. 
 
I mean that with the greatest respect, they have clearly been the best team in the competition this year.  
 
There is no point going up there and being on the back foot, because those guys will beat you if you play reactive.  
 
The guys that we have available at the moment, you can go through those players from last week and they all performed strongly.  
 
Bruhn was very good, Holmes was great again as he has been all season, Jack Bowes was probably the best player on the ground, Blicavs is coming back and Clark will probably come back as well.  

On Toby Conway and Rhys Stanley

Toby has played as much consecutive AFL footy as he ever has, there are not many 20 year old first rucks in the competition that can dominate, or even play every week.  
 
We think, in our opinion, that he played the best game of his AFL career last week.  
 
We are optimistic about his trajectory, but it is nice to have Rhys Stanley back as well.  
 
We think not just for this week but post bye as well, building towards more availability will give us some options and we plan to use them. 

On the learnings from the past month

The challenge for us is to limit the damage when it's not going so well and maximise the advantage when we have it. 
 
We looked at the Port Adelaide game, where we gave them a big start and looked at why the first half didn't look like the second half. 
 
I have referenced that it is hard to remain consistent across an entire season, but I think we are seeing that within games too.  
 
I don't know many teams who are able to peak and stay there for a full four quarters.  
 
I am still really confident in every game we play, that we have the capacity to control games for decent periods.