IT was just a couple of weeks ago that the Swans would have felt like they were on a television quiz show. The losses had become infectious, and so many questions were being asked. They were coming from everywhere, including one quite foreign place: from within.
At times they weren't simply a shadow of the premiership team of 2005, or the grand final team of the following year. They were invisible. The tough, uncompromising men who would spill blood for a teammate had gone, and everyone was looking for answers.
"I suppose you do question yourself a bit, you ask what's going on," Ryan O'Keefe recalled. "Everyone's got their opinion of what do we do, how do we fix it, and I think when you start losing you just over-analyse it a bit. We just thought: 'Hang on, let's step back a bit, let's look from the outside again and say what are we doing differently'. We just had to get back to what worked.
"We went away from what we do best, and I think subconsciously we didn't realise we did. We tried different things and they just didn't work. So we said, 'Hang on, let's get back to what has worked for us in the past, let's have a go at it, and if it doesn't work, oh well, we'll try something different next year'.
"We had to get back to 'our' footy. Get our desire and our grunt, that contested football, and just have the leaders taking charge and making sure we win that contested ball, and when we do that everything else seems to follow. When we got back to it, look what we are doing.
"We knew we were still in the mix and I thought if we can just hang in there and get into the finals, I thought we could bounce back and when you get to the finals it's a different ball game. It was a tough time, but we never lost faith."
Particularly during a stunning second half where they booted 13.2, their 35-point win over North Melbourne in Saturday night's elimination final showed that the Swans still do have "it", a statement that would have been questionable after their run into the final with a record of six losses, a two-point and a four-point win over two bottom teams, then an easy win over another non-finalist, Brisbane, in a game which meant nothing.
Co-captain Brett Kirk admitted during their period of poor form it was "really challenging as one of the leaders of the club". They tried "honest meetings", and were getting and giving feedback but, in the end, it was about producing on the field.
"The acid was put on us," Kirk said. "We are realistic, we knew how we were playing and we needed to change it and we had moved away from how we play our best footy.
"We have honest meetings and feedback all the time. We had been struggling and individually we had to have a good look in the mirror and as a team [say] let's get back to playing our style of footy.
"There were a lot of meetings, but in the end it was, 'OK that's enough meetings, it's all about actions'.
"I don't think I ever doubted we would get back to the way we wanted to play. Unfortunately it [the poor form] just went on a bit longer [than had been hoped]. It was very frustrating but I knew we could turn it around.
"And I share responsibility for it. You do question yourself and your position. I knew I had to play to my strength and help pull other guys along with me.
"In terms of leadership, you can be a great off-field leader but you've got to stand up when you are being challenged, and I think in the third quarter, some of our leaders really stood up and answered that challenge.
"We just got back to playing for each other and that great feeling of working together and smashing in, having Jude [Bolton] next to me or having Jolls [Darren Jolly] pick me up … I love that. The harder we hit, the more guys who pick you up, the more grabbing of guys' [teammates'] jumpers, the more passion that was shown, I love it."
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