SWANS midfielder Jarrad McVeigh says the Swans “were blown out of the water” in the second quarter of yesterday’s 18-point loss to the Bulldogs.

“We got smacked in the clearances and I guess that’s what we weren’t happy about, the hardness at the footy," he said after the game.

"We started well, like we did last week, then in the second quarter we were fairly relaxed and dropped off and were blown out of the water."

After the Swans held a two goal lead at the first break, the Bulldogs hit back with a vengeance unleashing a seven goal to one second quarter.

This effectively set up the Bulldogs' 18-point victory - despite a late surge by the home side - to retain the Bulldogs’ impressive unbeaten record in 2008.

However, McVeigh’s performance – 24 disposals and two early goals – was one of the positives to come out of the loss. The Sydney product says he’s “just trying to get more of the footy and be more of an attacking threat this year.”

And while McVeigh was reasonably happy with his form, he is hoping the Swans can learn from the loss to keep the side’s top eight ambitions alive.

“We’ve just got to be switched on for four quarters of football. We can’t play a half of footy here or there and expect to win against a good team. There were a lot of turnovers and the ball just ended up at the other end.

“The third quarter was better and I think we just won the last quarter, but we switched off and it’s just not good enough. It’s been a theme for us throughout the year.”

McVeigh, like Paul Roos, also pointed to the Swans’ accuracy, or lack thereof, which effectively cost them the game.

The Swans shooting accuracy was 58.3 per cent, in sharp contrast to the Western Bulldogs on 81.8 per cent.

“We had more scoring shots than the Bulldogs but they ended up 18.4 and we ended up with 14.10. You aren’t going to win too many games with that,” said McVeigh.

The 23-year-old conceded Adam Cooney’s man of the match performance – the Bulldog ended with 25 disposals, three marks and five goals – was another deciding factor.