How do you stop Dane Swan?

THE Herald Sun asked six football authorities, all with considerable expertise in the field, what they would do to stop Dane Swan.

THE Herald Sun asked six football authorities, all with considerable expertise in the field, what they would do to stop Dane.

MALCOLM BLIGHT
Brownlow medallist. Premiership coach. Left-field thinker.

WHERE do you start? "Good question," answered Blighty.

"It occurs to me his ability to find the footy has almost been disregarded and because they rotate him so much it's hard to find someone to run with him," Blight said.

"He gets to play it on his terms, he's a natural follower of the ball. He doesn't have that heavy tag on him. His ability to get that quick kick in traffic is amazing. He's like Judd in that regard."

Blight suggested a midfielder to run with him, assisted by always having another midfielder on the bench ready to go when Swan reappears from the dugout.

"You're going to always have to have a midfielder on the interchange bench rotation to go on with him" he said. "Have one up your sleeve to go with him when he comes back.

"You can defuse him, not beat him, but defuse him. Guys who stand beside him and try to give a hard tag, he's too clever for that. He just pushes them out of the way. He'll run sideways and you think, 'Where's he going?'. He creates confusion.

"I'd come at him from the front, eyeball him, face-to-face, come from one, two or five metres.

"Players want to feel him, touch him, he's going to get kicks, so what you have to do is stop him being damaging.

"So, if he feels that pressure coming at him from the front all the time, and he likes to get that quick kick, but if someone is coming at him it's a lot harder kick to do."

Blight said Swan was the key to Collingwood's flag hopes.

"He actually brings other players in and his kicking is not as bad as everyone says. I've seen him play (live) about 10 times this year and he finds a lot of targets."

Blight said he did not believe tagging Collingwood's midfielders would work. "If you're going to to do that, give them the trophy now."

Nor did he expect Geelong coach Mark Thompson to make too many radical changes, if any, to the game style he has previously used against Collingwood.

"He'll take them on, I know he will," Blight said.

And if Swan gets another 35 disposals? "But perhaps Ablett will get 35, perhaps Selwood will get 35 ... who knows?"

GREG WILLIAMS
Carlton, Sydney and Geelong champion. Brownlow medallist. Prolific ball winner.

"DIESEL" didn't have a defensive bone in his body and when he looks at Swan he doesn't wonder how opposition teams can stop him, he marvels at what Swan can do on the field.

"The first thing is you can't stop him" Williams said.

"The best chance you've got is to restrict him, that's all.

"They've all tried everything, haven't they?

"The problem is, and it's not just him but you've got (Gary) Ablett, (Lenny) Hayes, (Leigh) Montagna, (Brendon) Goddard, they're all getting 30-plus every week, Swanny's getting more and he's really difficult to stop.

"The way the game is played now, like at every stoppage, they have six handballs to get it out.

"The way Swanny runs around at the stoppages, you can't stop him once he gets control of the ball. He's going to receive it. The same with Gary Ablett. Gary always gets a handball at stoppages running around the back."

So, do opponents have any hope?

"They can't do anything, that's my opinion anyway. With the rotations, the slow play, the way Collingwood goes around the boundary line, if you get off your man you can get it and Swanny does it all the time.

"As a footballer, he's a modern player. The rotations are different, the stoppages are different, and his ball sense ... he's just a serious magnet.

"Of all the things the modern players do, he does it better. He's phenomenal. He gets quinellas and trifectas all the time, two and three touches in the one play."

JAMES McDONALD
Retired Melbourne captain. Forever committed.

McDONALD knows all about Swan. He's played on him several times and watched him advance from fringe player to elite midfielder.

It is Swan's ability around the ground that pushed McDonald to breaking point.

He played on Swan in Round 2 for a period and Swan returned just 21 disposals, his weakest numbers this year.

"He's shown this year you can't stop him," McDonald said.

"He's deceptively quick. He mightn't look quick, but I reckon he's up there with the quickest in the competition. Obviously, he's got a massive tank.

"(Cameron) Ling is probably the best tagger going around, but I think Lingy probably can't go with him these days. And he (Swan) can also push forward. He can take marks overhead and kick goals.

"He's a different sort of player but he reminds me of a Scotty West, really busy around the stoppages. He's in continuous motion. If he stops and walks something triggers him off and he's away.

"That's why he's so hard to stop because he's always in the play. He pushes deep into defence so he gets possessions there and then he'll push hard forward.

"It's not a fluke that he averages 30 touches a game. That's not lucky. You've got to have intuition about where the ball is going to go.

"He seriously works from one end of the ground to the other, it's not just around the midfield."

He rated the players' 2010 MVP alongside Judd, Ablett and Goddard as the elite midfielders.

"I played on him two or three times, I played on him Round 2 this year, and even then we had to have a plan because he rotates so much. You can come off with him, but you can't get back on with him at the same time. It's pretty hard to orchestrate that, so someone had to go to him until I could get back on.

"He's an unbelievable reader of the play, he knows where the ball is going to go, and when you're tagging him you can't get sucked into trying to get the ball.

"If you want to stop him it has to be a total defensive role, wherever he goes you go and don't look at the ball pretty much, just look at him. Swan is the key. If you can stop him, and the other blokes can break even on the other blokes, you are a chance."

JOHN QUINN
High performance manager with Greater Western Sydney.

QUINN, the former fitness guru at Essendon, has a simple answer when asked how to stop Swan: "Good luck."

He rates Swan the best of the best in terms of repeat efforts and says finding an opponent to run with him is near impossible.

"It's true, because he is now the elite of the elite, the benchmark. You need a player who has got exceptional repeatability for endurance.

"Some of the best guys at that in the game are probably Ablett and Judd. (Andrew) Carrazzo is one of the better guys to shut that sort of running down.

"But I don't think anyone really, at this current time, has quite the same ability as Swan has.

"The key is his ability to burst and when the ball is turned over he is gone again.

"So it's not just ability to burst but he repeatedly does it. If you put somebody on him, they might be able to keep him quiet for the first couple, but they can't keep doing it.

"He's got an exceptional engine which allows him to repeat and repeat and repeat again.

"Judd at his absolute peak at West Coast was able to do it."

Similar to most observers, Quinn said the depth of Collingwood's midfield had helped Swan.

That the confidence and predictability within each other and collectively means players, including Swan, know where to run, and that they will be rewarded when they do.

"What we see is a well-drilled Collingwood machine.

"They've got their rotations bang-on which enables all their midfielders to maintain a certain level of intensity, and it just happens that Swan's level of intensity is half a notch above anybody else.

"He's able to utilise that because of the work rate of those around him," Quinn said.

"The good thing about him is he's almost a rags-to-riches story. Judd was always the prince who became the king but this bloke is the pauper who's made it.

"But the great thing about footy is coaches will find a way a way to stop him."

DENIS PAGAN
North Melbourne premiership coach. Fiercely competitive.

PAGAN'S coaching philosophy centred around responsibility on one hand and accountability on the other - and if that didn't work, kick it long to Wayne Carey.

He looks at Swan and Collingwood and says accountability is the key. Surprise them, he said, and lock down on several players, not just Swan.

"Their rotations are so good, the way they do it, they get blokes free off the bench and there's always a loose player," he said.

"I don't know if the Cats would do it. But you've got to have an element of surprise, pick your midfield and say: 'This is your role to play'.

"Pick someone to go with Alan Didak in and out of the forward line, someone to go with (Scott) Pendlebury, someone to go with Swan, someone to go with all their midfielders.

"They've got so many guys who they can throw into the midfield you've got to pick defenders who can go and play onball, and when they come off the ground you come off with them.

"Some people might say you are reacting by doing it.

"But I've done it before. I wouldn't say we had an A-grade midfield when I was coaching Carlton, but we played West Coast one day, we found ourselves six or seven goals up at halftime, four goals up at three-quarter time, were super for three quarters, but they just ran over the top of us with their class, with (Ben) Cousins, (Daniel) Kerr."

At the Kangaroos, where he won the 1996 and 1999 flags, Pagan had midfielders who could play forward and back, such as Peter Bell and Anthony Stevens.

"Those sort of blokes would go in and out of the midfield, and in and out of defence," he said.

"You know what, no one's done it yet against Collingwood. Everyone has tried to rotate against them. And if you go head to head with them, with Swan, he's still going to end up with 35."

Pagan's plan is left-field in modern practices, with the press being a dominant strategy, but he advocates a nine-man run-with system.

"How many coaches have been prepared to have a real close-down in the midfield, and go one-on-one with eight or nine midfielders? It's the only way you can do it.

"You wouldn't be talking to your players about it being a reactive role, you'd talk to them about a positive role - 'That this is your role today head to head with (Luke) Ball, Swan, Pendlebury'. Just pick blokes to do it.

"It is one-on-one, first in for the ball, first to emerge, first to the contest, that's the way you sell it.

"The whole key is the pressure in the midfield. It's not rocket science, it's a key with most sides when you get to this stage of the season.

"I defy anyone to know who's on who in the midfield.

"Make everyone accountable. You've got nothing to lose doing it.

"If you keep doing the same old thing you keep getting the same old result."

TONY LIBERATORE

Brownlow medallist. Aggressive tagger

LIBBA was the first unofficial "tear them to shreds" tagger who pushed the laws - and crossed them - when his place in the Bulldogs team as a standout midfielder came to an end.

Reviled and revered, Liberatore turned the traditional run-with role into hand-to-hand combat, and his mental strength to fulfil his role across four quarters was equally applauded and abused.

Suffice to say, he approves of an aggressive approach to Swan and, like Blight, said he would also come at Swan from the front.

"I'm surprised they are not tagging him weekly. Is it because he's untaggable?" he said.

"If I was playing on him I'd come from in front of him as much as I could. Play 5m in front of him. If he was going for the ball, just be in front of him, probably go to him late.

"You have to give up the ball. He gets that many numbers you have to basically have your focus on him for the whole game and not worry about going for the ball, which I have done."

Liberatore had famous stoushes with opponents, perhaps the most memorable being the day he physically took it to Sydney's Paul Kelly at Princes Park.

He said Swan required the Kelly treatment.

"You have to shut him down completely, and probably Paul Kelly is one time where I did that," he said.

"He hasn't really been tested in the physical area, has he? It's not really part of the game now and, in saying that, you tread a fine line in that area these days. Back when I was playing it was little different.

"But to stop him, try to make contact with him late, get him off balance, if you can get away with it.

"He's phenomenal. I haven't really seen a player who seems to be left alone for the whole game like he has. There hasn't really been a player who's said, 'I'll shut him down completely'. Maybe there's not a player who can do that. I'd be very surprised if that was the case.

"Sometimes in finals they orchestrate a player to do that, someone out of the box. You need someone not to think about the ball, just him."