Co-captain Jarrad McVeigh has described Saturday night’s 20-point loss to Collingwood at ANZ Stadium as a “tale of two halves”.

Despite positing a strong first half, which saw the Sydney Swans hold an eight-point lead at both the quarter and half time breaks, the team fell away in the second half and suffered their second consecutive loss for the season.

Speaking to SwansTV in the rooms after the loss, McVeigh said his team’s second half performance, particularly after an encouraging start to the match, was very disappointing.

“Our first half was really good and then our second half dropped away,” McVeigh told SwansTV.

“Our run and our ball use wasn’t great to our forward line and we let them have too many uncontested marks and allowed them to use the ball quite easily in the second half.

“It really was a tale of two halves for us.”

The co-captain lamented the Swans’ skill errors in the second half as well as his team’s ball use after the half time break.

“Moving the ball from the backline there were a lot of options in the first half and that wasn’t the same in the second half,” he said

“We needed to keep moving as a group to give players options.

“Then there was also our ball use, and simple fumbles around the ground at critical times hurts us, so we can’t do that.

“We need to keep working hard on those areas and then back up again next week.”

The Swans will hit the road next weekend to take on the Adelaide Crows, who will also be looking to post their first win for the season after suffering a 54-point loss to Port Adelaide on Saturday afternoon.

McVeigh said his team would be desperate to make amends next week and stressed the importance of not dropping a third consecutive match.

“0-2 isn’t the greatest start but we get another chance next week,” he said.

“We’ll train hard and we’ll do all the extras and we’ll be on top of the little things and eventually it will turn and we can put in a real four-quarter performance.

“(Adelaide and the Swans) will probably both in the same position, so it will be a huge game over there.

“We can’t afford to be 0-3 if we want to go places towards the back end of the year.

“We’ll need to stick together and fight through it.”