TWO YEARS post-Lance Franklin's retirement, questions still swirl around what Sydney's best forward combination looks like.

With Joel Amartey, Logan McDonald, Hayden McLean, and even Peter Ladhams arguing their case to be key parts of the tall setup ahead of the ball, it is Will Hayward who has been the dark horse.

Into his ninth season at the Swans, Hayward kicked a career-best 41 goals in 2024, but by his own admission had a quiet start in backing that up this year.

A breakthrough game against North Melbourne on Saturday evening, in which his four goals were instrumental in his side's 65-point win, has the 26-year-old confident he – and the team – can now gather some momentum through the season.

"I obviously started the year pretty slow and for me, I just really wanted to come out and play my role and get a bit of continuity and confidence back in my game, which I was able to do," Hayward told AFL.com.au.

"It was clear, it's the byproduct of our ball movement and what our mids and defenders do. So, it was just a good team performance, and I was lucky to get on the end of a few."

There's the humility and team-first speak, signalling that he was simply the end result of other peoples' hard work, but there was a broader impact from Hayward outside of the four majors beside his name on the stat sheet.

Playing a strong pressure game, he laid two inspirational tackles in the last quarter, when the game was well and truly won, to instil the mindset that effort is required from siren to siren, no matter the margin.

"To Will's credit, he played an unbelievable game of footy. Obviously, to lead up and have shots on goal, but his defensive intent and pressure on the ball carrier to give himself multiple opportunities was really good," head coach Dean Cox said.

One of those tackles – a dramatic takedown of North Melbourne's Cam Zurhaar – set the vocal red and white crowd alight.

"That's what we reward after the game, you know, that's what we speak heavily about, is those acts that all players do, no matter the time or the state of the game. And to Will's credit, that's what he said he was going to do, and he delivered," Cox said.

It's a moment that Hayward brushes off, but will certainly be shown as a positive in the club's review of the game come Monday.

"They're the sort of things that we pride ourselves on, you know, the defensive stuff and stuff that might not even get shown on TV, but some selfless running and things like that, which the boys did all night," Hayward said.

But what exactly was going through his mind in that moment?

"Luckily for me, (Zurhaar) was trying to wind up and I could tell he had eyes for goals and was going to take a few more steps, so it was just right place, right time for me. It was good," Hayward said with a laugh.

And he's not adverse to sending the clip to Zurhaar in the coming week.

"He's a really good fella, I saw him over in London in the off-season, so yeah, if you can do that, I'll send it on to him."