John Longmire has praised the effort of his young midfield despite a frustrating night on the scoreboard, where his Swans kicked just six goals from 50 forward entries.

Going up against the hardened Cats, Longmire noted that although not getting ultimate reward, things could have been worse.

"It's always a strange feeling, you sit there, you're not really sure how to feel," Longmire said of the stalemate.

"It's a bit of 'Geez that first half we played some really good footy and we just didn't hit the scoreboard'. Then we got eight points down and we fought back so it's a strange one. You don't know how to feel after games like that.

"We just need to hit the scoreboard a bit better than what we did."

What Longmire couldn't fault was effort and execution everywhere else on the field. Sydney dominated play in the first half, taking 16 marks inside 50 and shutting out the Cats' intercepting defence.

"I thought we played pretty well … in our first half, we executed exactly what we wanted to do, I thought we were very strong in all aspects of the game except the finishing," he said.

"That's an important part of the game and we didn't do it and if you look at the way the game was played in that first half, we did everything right except finish it."

It was a style of play that was led by its youth, as Braeden Campbell and Logan McDonald each kicked two goals, and Nick Blakey had 29 disposals coming off half back. 

"We had a pretty young midfield group and I think it's probably been missed a bit except for (Parker)," Longmire said.

"If you look at our average ages through our midfield, it has been, last year and this year, they're pretty young. 'BJ' (Braeden Campbell) and Errol (Gulden) and 'Gussy' (Angus Sheldrick) and even 'Rowy' (James Rowbottom), those guys aren't that old and so they're learning pretty much on the job and they're doing a good job of it."

The Swans will now look ahead to next week's clash with Richmond.