After having sat out the 2020 AFL Riverina Championship, the Griffith Swans will make their return to the playing arena.
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The Swans will make the trip to Crossroads Oval this weekend to resume their hostilities with Collingullie GP, who they played in their last game against in the 2019 grand final.
Coach of the Swans, Greg Dreyer, feels that his side is excited by the prospect of getting back out into an actual game after such a long break.
"It has been a long preseason, it's been 18 months of preseason, really, so they are all busting to go, actually," he said.
"We sort of had two starts last year but then got cancelled, so they did a bit of training, so it will be a welcome return."
Dreyer is looking forward to the challenge his young side will face this weekend when they make the trip to Collingullie.
"They are a strong club, and it is over there for their first game, and they missed out last year as well, so both sides will be pretty keen, so I'm expecting it to be pretty frantic to start with," he said.
"They are always a big strong physical team, so we are going to have to cope with that."
Dreyer is heading into the season with a squad who will be largely under the age of 22, and that is a challenge the Swans coach is looking forward to.
"Blokes like Jack Rowston, Riley Irvin and Nathan Richards are all around 21 and 22 and are sort of the senior boys, and then there is a big gap with James Toscan and Leigh Owen, who are in their thirties," he said.
"I'm familiar and have a relationship with a lot of them, and I know how they like to be coached, so that will help.
"It is just dealing with the inexperience I guess, and see how they cope with the pressure of the game being quicker and against stronger blokes."
Heading into the season with a younger side, Dreyer has set the Swans a simple goal.
"We have talked a lot in the preseason about the foundation and having our internal expectations and having a standard that we want to play at and reach every week," he said.
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"I think the biggest issue with a young side is inconsistency.
"We have talked a lot about being consistent and working well together and just trying to build a brand new team, really. So getting that consistency week in week out will be the big goal."
The Swans played an intraclub game against Marrar two weeks ago where the result went the way of the Bombers, Dreyer was pleased with aspects of the clash.
"That was a good cross-section of the group with seniors, reserves and 17s," he said.
"We were a bit scratchy on the skills of course, but I think things that we have been talking about and working on in preseason were there it was just the match practice, of course and getting used to playing with one another."
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