Whilst the Swans fell short against West Coast, Head coach John Longmire considers the outcome a "lesson learned" for his young side.

In what was a free-flowing and fierce hit out, the Swans showed plenty of promise early but were unable to sustain their competitiveness against a bigger, more experienced Eagles outfit, going down 11.11 (77) to 6.7 (43).

“We played some good footy early, we need to adjust when they (opposition) get dominance around the ground," Longmire said.

"We were playing really fast, but didn’t have structure in front of the ball."

Longmire was impressed by his side's attacking pressure and speed around the ground, but highlighted that having the ability to change tempo is key in the modern game.

"You need to make sure you play with gears, too often the kick to handball ratio was too great," Longmire noted.

"We need to make sure we come out with method".

Longmire expressed the importance of building from Saturday's clash for his undersized side, as they look to refine their playing style while Sydney's ruck stocks recover from injury - with Sam Naismith (season), Callum Sinclair (2-3 weeks) and Michael Knoll (3-5 weeks) – out with knee injuries.

"Nic Nat was dominant - the reality is the ruckmen aren’t available for us at the moment," Longmire said.

"We had 7 players on our injury list today that are 194cm or taller, and then we lost Melican (193cm) - we’re playing a bit undersized but we’ll find a way and work on a method to get that right."

Up against a more experienced and bigger-bodied West Coast squad, Longmire commented that his young side had plenty to learn from today's hit out.

"They’ve got more experience than us - some of our boys learned a lesson today about what a big, hardened, mature AFL footy team is like," Longmire said.

"We just need to get some height back - we’ll work through it and be competitive."

Jake Lloyd (26 Disposals), Josh Kennedy (25 Disposals) and Oliver Florent (19 Disposals) were among the Swans' best, while young talent Hayden McLean produced a solid performance up forward, booting 2 goals.