The Sydney Swans have gone down to the fast-finishing Collingwood Magpies at the MCG in Round 8.
While the Swans are starting to get a few key players back from injury, inaccuracy was a serious factor in the 11.11 (77) to 6.12 (48) result.
Speaking after the game, senior coach John Longmire was pleased with his side's intent, however a lack of execution proved costly.
"I thought early days, we just weren’t executing," Longmire said.
"Our effort and intensity was really good, and in the second quarter we started to execute some things but missed some easy goals.
"You need to take the opportunities when you get them. I thought they got a bit of the ball in the third quarter, but generally, for three quarters we were right in the hunt and right where we wanted to be."
The Swans struggled to handle the frenetic early pace of the game before clawing their way back in the second quarter, before taking an eight-point lead into the break.
The head coach was pleased with the side's response heading into the third, noting confidence gained from clawing their way back into the lead, but noted they needed to make the most of their moments.
"There were some basic opportunities you have to take, particularly when I thought our effort and intensity was really good for a fair bit of the game," Longmire said.
"We went in with a plan, we were trying to execute that really well, and to our players credit, they went at it really well and got some confidence from that.
"But some pretty basic kicks, you just have to have the confidence to go back and put the ball over into Punt Road. Its as simple as that, it’s part of the game, taking those moments and getting some reward when we did a fair bit right for a fair bit of the game.
Collingwood kicked five goals in the final quarter, as they went on to secure a 29-point victory and the head coach said that there were some learnigs to take away from that final term.
"In the third quarter, we were going really well, but we were rushing our entries a bit too much and they took some intercept marks," Longmire said.
"We just needed to slow down a little bit and do what we had done for two and a half quarters, which was just taking our time and executing the kick going forward.
"A bit of that is our youth, we got excited and played on from beyond the 50m and just wanting to kick it in repeatedly, but we have got to get better at that and execute a bit better than that.
"You have to take your chances when you play good teams. You need to capitalise when you get that opportunity" he added.
