Australian football
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THE cavalry has arrived for the Griffith Swans with four key players in line for a return against Ganmain-Grong Grong-Matong in tomorrow's pink day clash at Exies Oval.
New signing Josh Hamilton will make his second Swans appearance while veteran on-baller Mick Duncan, utility Dean Crack and forward Trevor Richards are all available.
The timing is critical as Griffith plots its resurgence with an important stretch of four of five games at home to come after the June long weekend.
Coming off the RFL representative bye, injured star Che Jenkins said the Swans are treating it as a "fresh start".
"We're probably looking at it as a fresh start," he said.
"We'll reset for this middle block of games which because of our start is going to be the most important part (of the season).
"We need to keep our players back injury-free and get some consistent four-quarter footy under our belts for a few weeks - if we do that we'll definitely improve."
After tomorrow's match, Griffith faces Narrandera (away) before the Queen's Birthday weekend, then takes on Collingullie AK (home), Turvey Park (home), Leeton-Whitton (away), Wagga Tigers (home), and Coolamon (home).
If the Swans can reproduce their best, Jenkins believes all are winnable to varying degrees.
He said his teammates can get the ball rolling tomorrow by winning first use of the football in the middle to starve GGGM's quality midfield.
"That's where it will be won or lost, in the guts," Jenkins said.
"If we can win the ball through the ruck I reckon our midfield will match them.
"Hopefully if we do that, it will improve our skills and options going forward.
"The last couple of weeks we've been trying to drum into the boys that it's about possession footy.
"Against Leeton, when we controlled the tempo with accurate passing and hanging onto the footy, we got it back on our terms and had a win.
"In the last few weeks against the good sides we've just blasted away and we've been ordinary."
The day starts early for Griffith's first-grade players, who will go on a bucket run up Banna Avenue on Saturday to raise money for the Griffith Breast Cancer Support Group before the match kicks off at 4.10pm.
The reserves play at 2pm, the under 17s at 12.20pm while netball is on from 11.30am.
Both the Swans Red and Swans White junior teams will be in action tomorrow as well.