East Coast mentor Ned Hyland said it would take his side time to get towards their best football this year.
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And that's the way it's panning out.
They'll be aiming to finish the regular season strongly when they venture to Perth to take on the Magpies in round 18.
It will also be forward Sam Child's 150th senior game on Saturday.
The fourth-ranked Swans are arguably the danger team of the upcoming NTFA division one finals.
They fell four points short of reigning champions Lilydale last weekend and have pushed the top three throughout the season.
This is while they've navigated having two training groups - one in St Helens and another in Launceston.
"If anything it's probably taken a little bit longer (to get there) this year than previous years," Hyland said.
"We feel like we've only really hit our best football, the football that we've been aiming to achieve, in the past three weeks. But ultimately our goal was to find that form before finals, which we feel like we're well on track to do."
Hyland explained many of his players only got to see each other on game day.
"So it's just about putting in the time together and getting to know how each other play and understanding what that game plan should look like as a complete group," he said.
The Swans will train as one group more often during finals.
"We try to get together once a month as a complete group, and we do that all the way through pre-season and the rostered season," the coach said.
"And then once finals hits, we try to get together once a week."
Hyland feels East Coast can give the finals series a shake up.
"We're looking like we'll probably finish fourth on the ladder pending how this week's results go but the year we won the flag in 2018, we came from fifth spot," he said.
"We've still got a large core of guys who have been a part of our finals campaigns over a fair number of years.
"They always turn up for the big games."
The Swans mentor said while it would have been handy to have the double chance, he feels the group can compete from any position.
"The way we see it, as long as we make finals, we're still a chance," he said.
"We've done that and we think we're a good shot."
Hyland felt his troops started slowly against Lilydale and spent a ton of energy playing catch up.
But he was pleased with how they got the game more on their terms in the latter part of the match.
Cairns Saints recruit Chris Novy has given great service in his first season and was the Swans' best against Lilydale.
He's kicked 22 goals from his 12 outings and has regularly led the league MVP vote count.
"As a club and playing list, we've learned a lot from him this year," Hyland said.
"He goes through the midfield and plays forward as well. He's been a really solid contributor for us, he has had a bit of a disrupted season."
Hyland explained Novy had a string of injuries during the middle of year and missed games.
"But he's getting back to his best now, which is great heading into finals," the coach said.
East Coast is working towards having their list in great shape for the season's pointy end.
"We're hoping the first week of finals we'll be the closest we've been to full strength all season," Hyland said.
In Saturday's other encounters, Lilydale welcomes Old Launcestonians and Evandale hosts Meander Valley.
St Pats and Old Scotch will face-off in the match of the round at John Cunningham Oval.
UTAS have the bye and have completed their season.
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