SYDNEY Swans coach John Longmire took a different approach to their bye in round 19 and hopes it has his players primed for Saturday's massive clash against Essendon at Etihad Stadium.

Clubs have regularly struggled following a bye this season and the Swans had trialled three training sessions before the weekend off.

This time, however, the players had four days break following their strong win over the Western Bulldogs before training on Thursday and Saturday.

With the Swans sitting sixth, just four points above the ninth-placed Bombers, Longmire knows how important a victory is on Saturday.

Longmire closely studied Essendon's round 19 match against Collingwood, and on Monday reviewed the Swans' round two win over the Bombers.

"It starts with winning against Essendon," Longmire said when asked how his team can give themselves a best shot at success in September.

"We looked at the [Essendon] game on the weekend and while the result in the end was a bit of a blow-out, no team has kicked eight goals against Collingwood in a quarter of footy.

"We also saw what they did in the first half against Carlton the week before.

"We've tried to make sure we've used the bye in a positive sense, allowed our players to freshen up, work on some things and then focus on this week.

"This game is just critical for our season and that's what we're worried about.

"Essendon are sitting just outside the eight breathing down our necks."

The Swans held on to sixth place following a round of beneficial results during their bye.

Fremantle (eighth) and Essendon lost while St Kilda (seventh) didn't produce the huge percentage boosting win many expected against Gold Coast.

"When you don't play, you watch the other results pretty closely and we were fortunate that we didn't lose any ground and stayed in sixth spot," Longmire said.

"Our destiny is in our own hands and that's all you can hope for at this time of the year.

"That's the situation we're in."

Longmire also said the club's depth was soon to be boosted with players returning from injury, including Gary Rohan, Jed Lamb, Andrejs Everitt and Mike Pyke.

Rohan, who played the first four rounds of the season before being struck down with knee and hamstring injuries, could give the Swans a significant boost heading towards the finals if he can force his way back into the side.

"There's no doubt, we're looking forward to getting some game-time into Gary in our reserves," Longmire said.

"He doesn't need a lot of game time because of the way he plays, he's just so quick and exciting.

"So we're hoping to get some more training into him, a couple of good games and hopefully he's putting himself up for senior selection."

And Longmire is hoping the different approach to the bye pays off.

"We traditionally just trained Monday, Wednesday, Friday and had the weekend off and we did it a bit differently this time around," he said.

"You don’t know until you get into the game and see how they respond, but all signs at the moment are pointing to the players really appreciated freshening up."

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of the clubs or the AFL