SYDNEY Swans skipper Brett Kirk says he understands the expectations on the shoulders of underperforming dual Brownlow medalist Adam Goodes, but has backed the classy on-baller to beat his form slump.

“He does get the best run-with player each week and that's something he has to deal with,” Kirk said on Wednesday.

“He's an important player to us and he has a lot of pressure on him. We'll just give him the support.”

Quizzed on advice he was giving his star on-baller, Kirk said “to just play his role”.

“We don't rely on any one player. So for Adam to be a good player for us he's just got to play his role in the 22.

“I guess if you're up and down with your form, you tend to try work your way into games.

“And I think that's not far away for Goodsey. We saw his form in the second half of last year was super and we're just waiting for him to get back into that form.”

Kirk added that the form slump – which prompted coach Paul Roos after last week's Geelong loss to declare Goodes was the only one who could get himself out of his current dip – was nothing to do with heart.

“He's working hard in games.

“The playing group will support him, he's very important to us and that's all we can do,” Kirk said.

Goodes' stats for the Geelong clash read nine kicks, five handballs, two marks and four behinds.

Kirk described his side's final quarter as “ordinary” in its 42-point loss at Skilled Stadium against the Cats.

“I think we showed some good form against Geelong, barring the last quarter where we were pretty ordinary.

“Geelong is the benchmark and we were able to scratch our way back but in the end they kicked some great goals.

“We thought we'd matched them up until the final quarter. We've got some good young players who are stepping up and we're looking forward to playing the Kangaroos [this week], who play a hardened type of game similar to Geelong."

In other news, Barry Hall is due back later this week after a week's absence following wrist surgery and a seven-week sting for striking Eagles' Brent Staker.

Kirk was tightlipped on what the leadership group had planned for Hall, other than to say “there'll be some open dialogue about what happened. It's no use hypothesising about what will be said.

“My view is the same as the leadership group's view; we'll sit down and talk about it so I'm not going to give you my opinion right now.”

And Kirk didn't rule out a return for ruckman Peter ‘Spida’ Everitt this weekend against the in-form Kangaroos.

The sixth-placed Roos have one of the league's ruck stars in Hamish McIntosh, who's vowing to play better this week after what he described as a largely disappointing performance last week in his side's win over the Pies.

“He [Everitt] did better than they thought he might [in the twos], so I'm sure he'll be up for selection.”