Sydney Swans co-captain Jarrad McVeigh insists his team won’t change their game plan in the absence of suspended forwards Lance Franklin and Kurt Tippett against Port Adelaide on Thursday night.

The two tall power forwards are each suspended for the one game, but McVeigh stressed Sydney would tweak things without overhauling their structure.

“We’ll adjust to certain players who are playing there and what we might do,” McVeigh said on Tuesday.

“We’ll train through a few different scenarios, but we’re not going to change our game plan because two players are out.

“We believe our game plan stands up and that’s what we’ll continue to do.”

McVeigh had confidence in Sydney being able to cover the absence of their two main goalkickers, who between then have kicked 58 goals this year.

Without the stellar duo Sydney’s leading goalkicker is midfielder Luke Parker with 13, with Gary Rohan and Adam Goodes (both 11), the only other Swans in double figures.

McVeigh pointed out Sydney had two other proven forward performers who got the job done in the pre-Tippett-Franklin era.

“They (Franklin and Tippett)are obviously very good players but we’ve won a premiership with Sam Reid as centre half forward in 2012 and with Adam Goodes there as well, so we’ve got no concerns about that,” McVeigh said.

“Obviously you’ll miss them, but some guys will come in to play a role and whether they are smaller guys or taller guys, we will have to adjust accordingly.

“But I’ve got full faith in whoever comes in that we will be right.

Third-placed Sydney are coming off a home loss to Richmond and Port are trying to fight their way into the top eight.

“It’s going to be huge game for both teams, they are fighting for a spot in the finals and we’re trying to stay in that top four berth,” McVeigh said.

McVeigh conceded Sydney needed to address the issue of teams having big scoring runs against them and said it came down to effort.

In their three losses, Fremantle kicked nine goals to two in the first half, Western Bulldogs slammed on six straight goals either side of quarter time and Richmond last Friday outscored the Swans 11 goals to three in the second half.

“At the start of the year our second halves were pretty good but it’s kind of turned,” McVeigh said.

“At the moment our second halves haven’t been great, so we’ve got to adjust and we’ll go through a few things with the way we set up.