The Dogs piled on 13 unanswered goals in a first-half performance that had Roos feeling somewhat helpless in the coach’s box.
Despite a turnaround of sorts in the second half, the Swans still sunk to a convincing 40-point defeat.
“Old,” was Roos’ reply when asked how he felt after the game.
“We probably followed our best performance [against Port Adelaide] with our worst.
“We happened to have guys who probably had their worst games for the year, and they all had them on the same day.”
The Swans started well, winning the contested football and establishing an early lead before the Bulldogs ripped the heart out of the contest, making the Swans seem second-rate while they were doing it.
Roos said the period in between his team’s second and third goal – from midway through the first quarter to early in third – was “deplorable” and had him looking for an early escape.
“I was trying to get an early flight actually but I didn’t think that would look that flash,” he said.
“It was probably 40 minutes of our worst footy we have played in six years. “
The performance was even more puzzling coming off the back of last week’s stellar win at home against Port Adelaide.
The coach had no answers for the sudden form slump but said a team like his could not afford to be off their game against quality opposition like the Dogs.
“It’s one of those psychologies of sport ; it’s pretty hard to explain”, Roos said. “We haven’t got a margin for error. Even at our best in ’05 and ’06, we didn’t really have a margin for error and now we’ve got younger guys coming in the team, the margin is less”.
The Swans fought out the game well, kicking ten goals to five in the second half. Roos said the mini-revival was more due to individuals turning their games around than any directions he gave from the coach’s box.
“It’s probably one of the times you feel helpless because things are going so bad, anything you try as a coach doesn’t really work ... It’s just up to the players to dig themselves out.
“It’s one of the biggest tests for players if they are playing poorly to get them to turn it around.
“Some of them were able to do that but most of them really struggled for most of the day.”
