NEUTRALISING Nic Naitanui is a big key to stopping West Coast in Sunday's blockbuster at Domain Stadium, according to Sydney Swans coach John Longmire.
The star ruckman has been a dominant force this season and a big reason why the Eagles sit second on the ladder.
West Coast is the second-best centre clearance team in the competition behind Adelaide, but Naitanui put on a clinic against Sam Jacobs a fortnight ago in the Eagles' 56-point win over the Crows.
The Swans welcome back premiership ruckman Mike Pyke after he missed last week with a knee issue but they have lost Kurt Tippett to a broken hand.
Longmire said the Swans have looked at some vision of Naitanui this week but they haven't dwelled on it too long.
"If you do too much study you think what are we going to do with this bloke?" Longmire said on Friday.
"You look at what he can do and obviously he can do all sorts of things. I'm sure Simmo (Adam Simpson) is having the time of his life letting him loose in the centre bounces.
"But we just want a really honest contest. We know that he's going to get his hands on the ball a lot of times.
"But our ruckmen need to make sure they try to neutralise the effectiveness of that and our onball brigade is reasonably experienced so we're relying on that pressure at ground level as well."
Longmire joked that Pyke had spent all week on a trampoline preparing to match Naitanui's leap.
The Swans made four changes to the side that lost to Hawthorn comprehensively last week. Three were forced with Tippett, Ted Richards (suspension) and Craig Bird (calf) all unavailable while Brandon Jack has been omitted.
Defenders Xavier Richards and Jeremy Laidler return alongside youngster Isaac Heeney and Pyke.
Richards and Laidler should give Longmire the desired flexibility in defence to throw Sam Reid forward to partner Lance Franklin.
"We've got a pretty clear idea of what we're going to do with Reid," Longmire said.
"But we know he's flexible and can go either end. He's played a number of various roles for us this year, so we're confident at either end.
"We just need to make sure we have other options up in our front half.
"Lance will be up the ground, he'll be deep at different times but we like to make sure we have some flexibility in our front half as well."
The Eagles have lost key defender Jeremy McGovern and have replaced him with teenager Tom Barrass.
The 19-year-old will make his AFL debut just 11 weeks after making his WAFL debut. The 194cm key defender was recruited with pick No.43 in the 2013 NAB AFL draft but played just eight WAFL reserves matches last year before succumbing to injury.
He began this year in the WAFL reserves as well but has been in outstanding form since being elevated to the seniors.
Longmire does not think the Eagles' defence will lose too much with McGovern going out.
"They've been able to cover for their defensive losses really well this year," Longmire said.
"If you look at even the contested marks last week in the Collingwood West Coast match, and you look at the fact Collingwood were only able to score two goals after McGovern went off, they've been able to do it really well.
"Undersized defenders playing key position roles has been a real highlight of West Coast's year so far."
The Eagles took 15 contested marks to four last week with McGovern taking just one, but the budding star has taken 20 for the season to sit second at the club behind Elliot Yeo (22).
