The Sydney Swans have locked their eyes on a clash with Essendon at Etihad Stadium on Friday night as they look to click back into gear after Saturday’s loss to Gold Coast.

The fourth-placed Swans will have all to play for across their final five games of the regular season as they push to cement a position in the top eight.

Richmond and West Coast lead the peloton on 52 points and Collingwood follows closely behind on 48, while Sydney rounds out the top four on 44.

Sydney coach John Longmire said the Swans' focus had shifted quickly to the 11^th-placed Bombers ahead of the Round 19 opener, who await a crucial series of games themselves on the road to the finals.

“We’ve got to make sure we turn it around pretty quickly,” Longmire said.

“We play Friday night this week, so with the six-day break you do the review and then you get into the next week pretty quickly. We’ll look back but we’ll have to look forward as well. You look back on the disappointment we had on the weekend, but we have to make sure we look forward and use what we learned out of the weekend for this weekend against the Bombers.”

The Bombers won just two of their opening eight games of the season but have since enjoyed a surging mid-season revival in which they’ve won seven of their last nine games.

They trailed Fremantle at quarter-time and half-time at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night but kicked into gear in the second half to boot nine goals to the Dockers’ four to claim a 29-point win.

If a common pattern of Sydney's season is of any indication, the Swans will relish the chance to face a fierce opponent with plenty on the line itself.

They arrested a 22-point final-change deficit at the Cattery to stun Geelong in Round 6 after losing narrowly to Adelaide the week prior, before gritting out a thrilling win over Hawthorn at the MCG off the back of a loss to North Melbourne.

Longmire says Essendon looms as a formidable challenge.

“They play a hard, quick brand of footy,” Longmire said.

“They can get some real bounce out of it and we understand what they delivered on the weekend was really strong footy. But everything’s done in balance. We need to look at what we do and what the opposition do and find the right balance.”