DEFENDER Nick Malceski believes the Swans' second half against Geelongmay be the turning point in Sydney'sseason.
Thoughthey ultimately fell short, the Swans recovered from a 43-point margin to draw within11 points of the ladder-leaders before late goals to the Cats secured their 18-pointvictory.
Malceski saw signs in the second-half fightback thatcould herald better things from the Swans in the coming weeks.
"Ithink we (can) take a lot of positives out of the last half," said thein-form defender.
"Wedid have a crack, and I think coming back from 40-odd points behind to getwithin 11 really showed some positive signs.
"Wegot the feel back of how we usually to play. I think if we can play like thatfor the next nine games, we're definitely still in the mix."
Malceskisaid the mood in the Swans’ rooms was surprisingly upbeat after the game, instark contrast to the previous week after the Swans were soundly beaten in Sydney by Collingwood.
"Usuallyafter a loss everyone is down, especially last week after we had a bad gameagainst Collingwood,” he said.
“Weknew we weren't going to come out and flick on a switch, like (Paul Roos) said,and play premiership footy. But I guess in the last half there were a lot ofpositives. There was a bit of an upbeat feeling in the rooms afterwards.
"It'smore of a positive vibe now around the club."
Whilemany have written off the Swans' premiership chances in 2007, Malceski believesthe team is still in the running.
"Westill can make the top four,” he said.
“There'sno reason we can't win nine games straight coming up, so we're staying positiveand hopefully we do make the top four. It's a big ask, but we're going to staypositive."
Afterallowing the Cats to kick a big score in the first half, the Swans improvedsignificantly in the second half, finding targets and looking far more like theteam that made consecutive grand finals in the last two seasons.
Malceskibelieves this improvement will set the team up for the rest of the season.
"Wefound that edge in the second half, and hopefully we bring that in the nextnine weeks," he said.
"Wehad a crack, and really did what we wanted to do instead of playing the way theother team wants to play. If we do our own thing, what we want to do, I guessit's going to help in the next nine."