THEY call it the premiership quarter for a reason, and while Sydney coach Scott Gowans might have said his side was not necessarily the best side in the race for the flag last week, the Swans put Walyalup (Fremantle) to the sword with four unanswered goals in the third term.

Neck-and-neck throughout the contest, Sydney showed its class when the going got tough and thanks to a handful of changes and lift of intensity, was able to shake off the Dockers at Henson Park. The 25-point differential told a tale of how crucial that 28-0 third quarter was, with Sydney moving to 4-0 in the season, while the Dockers suffered their third straight defeat.

“We made some structural changes in the third just to help get the ball forward a little bit longer,” Gowans said. “I felt we were mucking around with it a little bit around the corridor. “That helped, and the other thing was we just lifted our intensity to get to the fall of the ball, so our contest stuff was more about because their pressure was so good we felt like we were being reactive to their pressure rather than us dictating it.

“We tried to flip that at half-time with some vision, showed some structural stuff and it seemed to work in the third.”

Walyalup came out hard which was no surprise to Gowans, knowing exactly what the Dockers were capable of despite two heavy defeats in the past fortnight. He backed his girls to “absorb” the pressure and then use speed to extract the ball away from the Dockers’ strengths and get it to the outside where the runners could get it moving.

Gowans said the Swans rotated nine players through the midfield, testing out plenty of combinations to try and find the “right mix” though conceded that could sometimes backfire as it did early in the match when Walyalup was on top.

“I thought that worked well, didn’t work so well in the first quarter, we probably made a few too many changes in the first quarter, but once the game was open and we were up and about and got the game on our terms, that’s when the advantage of that getting the ball to the outside and go with speed,” he said.

“You always want to chain the ball as much as you can, but if you go with speed and you get the decision wrong or the execution of the skill wrong, at least you’re defending it in your forward 50 and that was important.”

One player who lead the way in extracting the ball was consistent inside midfielder Laura Gardiner who racked up 35 touches, four marks, five clearances and laid nine tackles in the win. Gowans said the 22-year-old was “very important” and the fittest she had ever been.

“You forget that Laura’s so young still and she’s still learning the game,” he said. “There’s some improvements to come in her game with the way she positions herself and she can probably save herself a couple of k’s a game at times, but she’s got the ability to do it and I know her efficiencies can be up and down a little bit, but when you’re going that hard for that long, again you’d rather her get the ball forward and have to deal with it in the forward half than your back half.”

Walyalup coach Lisa Webb said the third term was the difference between the sides and while there were positives to come out of the game, there was still much work to be done.

“That really hurt us so we need to find a way to slow that down a bit,” she said. “Obviously those four goals hurt us, and we tried to change some things around and obviously couldn’t get on top in the last. There were certainly some positives out of it, the last two weeks have been tough. “Came out with a strong plan and strong intent, but we just didn’t execute in crucial moments of the game.”

After losses of 70 and 100 points the past fortnight, the Dockers coach said while 25 points was better on the scoreboard, her side was not in the market of consoling themselves with “competitive losses”.

“We’re far better than what we’ve been playing,” Webb said. “As much as it’s competitive, we’re not here to give away four points, we want to get back on the winner’s list really quickly and we have to keep looking at the process and what we do during the week. “Obviously every team we come up against is going to be really challenging, but we’ve got the team and the belief to be able to do it, we’ve just got to find better ways.”