Sydney Swans still not talking AFL finals despite thumping Fremantle Dockers

The win all but secured finals football for the Swans, a remarkable turnaround following the club's uncharacteristic 0-6 start to the season, and Saturday's result was a 12th triumph in Sydney's past 14 matches.

Yet finals are still not being spoken about by the club, and won't become a focus until the club is safely entrenched inside the top eight following their round-23 home clash with Carlton, such is Longmire's determination to finish the regular season powerfully.

Next week the Swans travel to ladder leaders Adelaide, and must win to maintain their flickering top-four hopes which would ensure a precious second chance in the finals. Captain Josh Kennedy is expected to return for that clash after missing the past two weeks.

"We've got a big job this week, when our players are rolling their sleeves up and working the way they worked today, that's fantastic," Longmire said.

"The facts are we need to keep going. That's our aim, to keep going, we need to keep pushing forward and keep playing really good strong team football."

Sydney's thumping win over the Dockers moved them up to fifth place ahead of Port Adelaide, which now has an inferior percentage to the Swans.

That percentage could prove significant over the final two rounds with 11 clubs still jostling for a position in the final eight.

And while the top four might prove a bridge too far after the Swans' disastrous start this season, those clubs who do finish ahead of Sydney will be nervously peeking over their shoulder at the challenge being laid down by last year's beaten grand finalists.

Their first half against Fremantle was arguably the best football they've played all season, as the 75-point margin at the main break suggested.

Star forward Lance Franklin booted all of his four goals in that opening half while the Dockers only managed a single six pointer in the first two quarters.

All up Sydney finished with 12 individual goal kickers as Luke Parker, Gary Rohan, Sam Reid, Tom Papley and Will Hayward also nailed multiple majors.

"It was a great spread, we've had that probably for a few weeks and we need to continue to do that because it makes us more unpredictable going forward," Longmire said.

"We dropped a little bit away in the third term but to the players' credit they really rammed it home in the last quarter to finish off incredibly strongly.

"When we were in situations where we looked like we were in trouble or outnumbered, we were able to get across and help a teammate and turn defence into attack and play good strong two-way football."

Fremantle flew back to Perth on Saturday night, licking the wounds from their most insipid showing of 2017 with games against Richmond and Essendon to close out their season.

"They're a hard-nosed professional team. They had four players different from last year, we had 14 or 15," Dockers coach Ross Lyon said of the loss, which is the biggest of his coaching career.

"I'm loath to make excuses, but that's a fact. I think we had seven first-year players.

"Internally we've been pleased with the amount of tight games we've been in and been competitive. But there's always been a concern that these games are around the corner.

"We didn't compete in the manner required [on Saturday]. They really pressured us in the first half, 44 tackles to something like 13, so that was really disappointing.

"Then it was important that we fought on – I think the first half we lost by 74 points or something and the second half by 29. In the third quarter we actually had more shots.

"There was enough character that got shown. We just didn't totally surrender, so that was important.