Sydney CEO Tom Harley is confident his side can be a top eight team in 2020, following a 2019 where the club took a step back to get games into their younger players.

The Swans are a tough team to read going into this season coming off a bottom-four finish and with worries over Lance Franklin’s knee.

Harley believes they can “do some damage” in 2020, with a mix of experienced heads and young stars.

“The Marsh Series game was absolutely disappointing (94-point loss to GWS) and we need to make every post a winner as much from an experience point of view, we have gotten very young, very quickly,” Harley told SEN’s the Captain’s Run.

“However in saying that, the young players we have got in our side, and I’m talking the under 23s Isaac Heeney, George Hewett and below, they’ve played a lot of footy together so that combined experience is really important when you’re building a strong team.

“With that in mind, a lot of those players played last year together and we only won the eight games, we lost five games by less than 10 points and had an average losing margin, which I think was the lowest in the competition, of 19 points.

“The key for us is to be competitive and give ourselves a shot and that’s really what we are measuring ourselves on, the non-negotiables of footy clubs.

“We’re a club that has prided itself for a long period of time on effort. There is a bit of an unknown with us, but we do think our best is good enough and some of those really close losses, you’re hoping you can turn them into wins with experience.

“We’re certainly relying on that experience and forming that chemistry with the younger team coming through so no expectation other than absolute all-out effort and I’m certain we’ve got the talent to do some damage.”

Sydney travels to Adelaide Oval to take on the Crows in Round 1, before facing Essendon (home), Gold Coast (away) and Carlton (home) in a chance to get off to a strong start.

Listen to Tom Harley on SEN’s The Captains’ Run

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