Swans Coach, Paul Roos, was definitely 'pleased' with the Swans' practice match against Essendon on Sunday.

"I'm rapt with the performance, and probably a little bit pleasantly surprised which is always good first up as you just don't know what to expect," Roos said. "So early in the season you expect a lot of fumbling and some poor kicking but I thought our skills were really sharp for this time of year."

"It is a new start, because of Plugger and Kel leaving ... it is a new team. Certainly we've got some older guys but we are really looking to that younger group - Goodes, Bolton, Fosdike, Barry, Saddington, Matthews, Nicks, Tadhg Kennelly - that's the group we need to take the club further and even that younger group behind it."

"By no means are we doing cartwheels ? but the way we were pretty clean with our hands and the way when we went to the football and took the ball rather than our tendency to fumble it," Roos said.

"It was pleasing, we had a very, very young team with Jimmy Meiklejohn, Nick Malceski, Adam Schneider kicking a goal ? the result was neither here nor there but the young blokes seemed to lift and it was good their character was tested and they seemed to respond."

"It was quite pleasing across the board. I thought Craig Bolton's performance first up for a new team was very promising. Schaub's effort given there is a fair amount space when you are playing 15-a-side against Matty Lloyd was very competitive. Jude Bolton was very pleasing and the older guys never cease to amaze me with Maxfield, Williams and Cressa who set the scene early for the younger guys."

"We set ourselves to play guys for a certain amount of time regardless of the result so again it was pleasingly we gave every player the exact amount of game time we wanted to."

Barry Hall's performance also gained a special mention from Roos:

"He certainly moved around and really played at it. It was pleasing the way he attacked the ball."

?He is always going to be at the ball and he is always going to lead around. When he gets frustrated he has to just keep going at the footy,?

Hall was happy with his overall performance:

"Just from where I was last year to this time I am pretty pleased but I have a bit of work to do goal-kicking wise as far as shots for goal," he said.

"I?m happy to just have a good hit-out. Now I have to work on match fitness and keeping on top of everything. My number one goal is not to be suspended, to have a consistent year and play 22 games."

Essendon Coach, Kevin Sheedy, felt the need to issue a warning to his experienced players after the Dons? performance. The Bombers' experienced line up was unimpressive when compared to the young squad that almost pulled the match out of the fire in the final quarter.

"When you clear three or four senior players they think, ?my position?s right?,? Sheedy explained. "Well, they will soon find out they won?t want to think that way at all. I can assure you of that. It?s the first game, but I would like to have them play better than that in the first half."

"I think that some of our senior players probably got a rude awakening, because when they went off the team played better, and I told them that. It was really exciting from that point of view that they played with a lot more freedom. You saw some good footy and some exciting goals and it was terrific."

"They've got some really good young players, Sydney, coming along. Young Bolton, was terrific, real professional, very very professional, where he ran, where he played, his use of the ball," Sheedy said.