SYDNEY Swans coach Paul Roos says the club still has one eye on the finals after a 15-point win against North Melbourne at the SCG.

The result leaves the 10th-placed Swans a game outside the top eight with six wins from 14 rounds.

However, Roos said preparing for the club’s next flag was even more important and the likes of Craig Bird, Heath Grundy, Nick Smith and Patrick Veszpremi showed on Sunday that they could play important roles in that journey.

The Swans coach also had high praise for Kieren Jack, who kept Brent Harvey to just 17 touches after the North skipper racked up 28 possessions against the Bulldogs last weekend.

“It’s good to have six or seven young guys playing well as a team but certainly [the win] keeps us alive,” Roos said.  

“We’re one game out of the eight so mathematically, it’s definitely possible but there’s not much margin for error.”  

The Swans laboured for much of the first half against a North side that could have led by as much as four goals at the long break, but for its inaccurate kicking at goal.

David Hale was the chief offender, booting four behinds for the day.  

But the home side booted the last two goals of the second term in a 90-second burst that Roos said was “critical”.

“I thought that was when we started to up the tempo with our tackling and that got us in the game,” he said.

“To finish off the game pretty strongly in pretty warm conditions… both teams would have been pretty buggered by the end of the game so it was good to finish off the game on top of the ground and get a really positive result.”

The Swans produced 10 individual goalscorers to cover the absence of the suspended Barry Hall and Roos said the drama surrounding the controversial forward hadn’t distracted his men.

“Kirky had to speak to the media so he’s obviously aware of it. The senior players would have spoken about it and spoken to Hally,” he said.

“Everyone knows, including Barry, what he’s done but he’s very popular, he’s very affable and he’s easy to like. He comes in, he comes to training and he does all the stuff so really for the players, it wasn’t that big an issue.”