Ken Hinkley on team selection this week:

“The critical part is we played really well as a team last week.

“Ollie is a pretty important part of our team no doubt, but when the team played as well as it did, we select the boys did the job last week.

“Ollie knows that. Ollie has been a part of that in the past. He understands that.

“Ollie would be able to play and probably play near his best, no doubt about that.

“But as I said, we are respectful of the team and the way we played last week, and the balance of the team was right.

“Some parts of the team didn’t absolutely fly last week, but collectively we had a pretty strong performance.

“Ollie is coming off a long-term injury, and the likelihood is that he will be in our team sooner rather than later.

“But this game is a combative game, and injuries happen. That’s probably what is going to happen in that case for Ollie to get back in the side.

Hinkley on playing a tall side:

“It’s quite amazing is it, we were too tall last week because we were inside, this week we are too tall because it’s outside and it’s wet.

“We are picking the team that gives us the best chance to win, and that’s what we’ve done again this week.

“We are lucky that our talls are quite mobile talls. You see Todd (Marshall) and Charlie (Dixon) play, even Peter Ladhams - they’re not just dry track days that they can stand there and mark the ball. They actually get after the ball really well on the ground.

Hinkley on playing in the wet:

“We are aware that we haven’t played our absolute best football a couple of times when it has been wet particularly at home.

“But if we go back to the West Coast game in Perth, which was a wet game as well, we played pretty well in that game.

“We have been able to do it, but the last two games here we haven’t adjusted as quickly as we needed to.

“You take territory when you can.

“You don’t try and overuse the ball if that’s an option for you. Our game is based around playing front half footy, so if we can get it in there and lock it in, which we think we can do pretty well.

“You are going to have to continually work at scoring because it will be a difficult day for scoring. The frustration from us is that we are not the most effective scoring side.

“Last week we got some really good stuff going. When you play in wet conditions you’ve just got to remain patient and get the game in your half.

Hinkley on Sydney:

“You only need to look at their most recent form.

“We played the Giants. They played the Giants. We lost by one. They lost by two. We understand what’s coming. We understand what John (Longmire) and his team will be like.

“They’ve always been strong. They’ve always been like that since I can remember the Sydney Swans.

“We respect that football club as much as any other football club in the competition I reckon, because of the way they play. We know what they are going to bring.