AFL round 1 this week

ROUND 1

Date		Venue	Time
Thu 2 Apr 2015	Carlton v Richmond	Melbourne Cricket Ground	7:20PM
Sat 4 Apr 2015	Melbourne v Gold Coast	Melbourne Cricket Ground	1:40PM
Sat 4 Apr 2015	Sydney v Essendon	ANZ Stadium	4:35PM
Sat 4 Apr 2015	Brisbane v Collingwood	Gabba	6:20PM
Sat 4 Apr 2015	Western Bulldogs v West Coast	Etihad Stadium	7:20PM
Sun 5 Apr 2015	St Kilda v Greater Western Sydney	Etihad Stadium	1:10PM
Sun 5 Apr 2015	Adelaide v North Melbourne	Adelaide Oval	2:50PM
Sun 5 Apr 2015	Fremantle v Port Adelaide	Patersons Stadium	4:40PM
Mon 6 Apr 2015	Hawthorn v Geelong	Melbourne Cricket Ground	3:20PM

Swans coach John Longmire said it was an unusual build up to the Round 1 match.

“I’m looking at the Bombers at their best and that’s what I’m planning for,” Longmire said.

“We’ve had to make sure we had all bases covered. What they do is up to them and we’re worried about what we can control. We don’t know till Thursday what the exact team is but now we’re more certain.

“It’s just making sure that we get what we want to do right. It’s always about getting that balance right and what that is about is playing the sort of footy we want to play. We need to get our style of footy right and know what their strengths are as well.”

Regardless of who’s in the line-up Lance Franklin loves playing against any Essendon team averaging almost five goals a game against them.

“We haven’t thought about who will be out there on Saturday,” Franklin said.

“We are concentrating on what we need to do and the brand of football we need to play on Saturday.

“We know what we need to do to win games of football, Essendon will put a strong side up and we have to prepare best we can and play four quarters.”