SWANS assistant coach John Blakey has called on all Sydney Swans supporters to rally behind the team again in 2011.

Speaking ahead of the Swans final NAB Challenge game against St Kilda on Saturday night at Coffs Harbour, Blakey said that the changes at the Club over the 2011 pre-season also needed to translate into support in the stands.

“There’s a really different feel around the place as far as the on-field stuff being different to previous years,” Blakey told sydneyswans.com.au.

“Obviously off field, our membership is growing all the time and it’s something that we’ve really got to drive home.

“We really need our fans turning up for the game, getting on board, getting behind us, and supporting us. We’d love to have as many members as we can to get behind the red and white again this year,” he said.

While Blakey was impressed with the improved performance against Gold Coast last weekend, he hopes this weekend will see further refinement ahead of the round 1 clash against Melbourne at the MCG on March 27.

“We’ll narrow our focus again this week,” Blakey said.

“Our eyes are firmly on round 1, so we’ve got to make sure everyone gets enough game time.

“We’ll probably experiment a little bit now that we’re getting closer to having to use the three interchange and a substitute for the first time, so we’ll probably look at doing that this weekend.”

Blakey said that the Swans ruck division would be an area for experimentation, with the new interchange rules seeing the Club’s ruckmen spending more time up forward.

“It’s an interesting one with the ruck,” he said.

“With only the three (interchange) that you can rotate, you don’t want to actually carry a ruckman as one of those players, so I guess our ruckmen will be spending time up forward for us in their rotations - through the ruck, through the forward line, and off the ground.

“Hopefully guys like Mark Seaby, who has played a lot of games up forward, can start taking a few grabs up there and putting a bit of heat on the opposition.”   

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