The Sydney Swans' search for their most potent mix of personnel in the hopes of capturing an elusive flag is set to continue.
Before a resounding reminder of the club's clinical best, coming in the form of a 97-point victory over the Port Adelaide Power on Saturday evening, Dean Cox made five changes.
Brodie Grundy missed the victory to be present for the birth of his first child. Veteran Dane Rampe was rested. James Rowbottom and Will Edwards missed through injury, and Malcolm Rosas was an omission.
After a heavy bump late in the third quarter, it appeared talisman Errol Gulden may be another forced change for next week, but he passed his head injury assessment, and his coach was well pleased with his production either side of his star's brush with Darcy Byrne-Jones.
Errol Gulden required a Head Injury Assessment after this hit from Port Adelaide’s Darcy Byrne-Jones.
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"He's pulled up well," Sydney coach Dean Cox said post-match.
"Obviously, when trying to contest the ball, that happens. His ability to be able to bounce straight back up, get the test done, do everything he needed to do, and come back out and play the way he did straight after that. That's one thing that he always does: he loves working as hard as he possibly can and playing his role for the team."
When asked if resting players is a priority within his broader coaching philosophy, or assessed on a case-by-case basis, Cox offered that he leans more toward the latter.
"Those are the decisions we'll make each week," he said.
"There's no particular plan about what happens this week other than preparing our players to play as well as we can against Essendon. We won't change what we do in regard to the way we review and how we try and prepare our players. Dane was probably a decision (this week) because he played six games in a row at his age, and we just took that option."
After starting the season like a house on fire, Justin McInerney was struck down by a severe hamstring injury.
He is in the frame for a return before September.
"Justin trained extremely well today; we expect him to do so this week," Cox said.
"We'll have those conversations in the early part of the week. We'll sit down as a group and discuss what the weekend looked like and what his training program looks like this week. But he's done everything that's been asked of him. He's trained hard for a long period of time and did a big session today."
Following the victory over the Power, the Swans are primed to finish inside the top two rungs of the ladder, enjoying the double chance and home field advantage such a position yields.
It places them firmly in contention for a first premiership since 2012, but the scars of grand final losses - heavy ones at that - must be overcome first.
Since their last triumph, the Swans have lost the 2014 Grand Final by 63 points, the 2016 Grand Final by 22 points, the 2022 Grand Final by 81 points and the 2024 Grand Final by 60 points.
