Goodes dominated the Swans’ 30-point win against North at the SCG, racking up 33 possessions, eight inside-50, five clearances and three goals to help deliver a crucial victory.
Roos said he had little choice but to change Goodes’ role, given the dual Brownlow Medallist’s indifferent form in the past month.
“Things haven’t been working so you’ve got to change it. That’s our responsibility to him as a player,” he said.
“Obviously it hasn’t been working for him as well as we’d liked up forward for the last two or three weeks, so it just gives him a chance… [to] get him around the ball and get him involved early.
“He got some real confidence by getting a lot of the football early and that translated to when he did go forward late in the game and… he was able to kick three pretty important goals.”
Roos also hailed the ability of the Swans’ less-decorated players to lift in a pivotal final term.
“The difference between this week and last week is that we saw some really important individual efforts in the last quarter that lifted the team, whereas last week we probably tended to drop off in that area,” Roos said.
“You saw them come from Richmond; today you saw them come from the Swans players.
“Kieren Jack runs down (Brent) Harvey, (Dan) Hannebery takes a really strong mark, Shawry (Rhyce Shaw) goes forward and kicks two goals; things like that which we haven’t been getting the last couple of weeks.”
Roos said he had implored the Swans’ new generation to raise the standard in the last quarter after the home side was held goalless in the third term.
“They’ve always had Jude (Bolton) or (Brett) Kirk or Craig Bolton; last year it was Mick (O’Loughlin) and Hally (Barry Hall). I think it’s just learning the identity of the team,” he said.
“We talked about it at three-quarter time: you can’t expect Jude to do it all the time, or Kirky to do it all the time. That was the really good thing today; some of the new players and young players playing really important roles.”
With a clash against Carlton at Etihad Stadium in round 16, Roos said there would be no easy games for his seventh-placed side and he would juggle his developing side accordingly.
Lewis Jetta and Jesse White (eight goals) starred in the reserves’ 80-point win against Tuggeranong and Roos suggested they would be right in the selection mix against the Blues.
