Sydney coach Paul Roos suggested the club could try to lift their flagging fortunes by throwing some of their youngsters into the pressure-cooker run to the AFL finals.

Firmly entrenched in the top four for the middle part of the year, Sydney have slumped to sixth after losing five of their last seven matches.

Losses in their last two games away to Collingwood and at home to Brisbane could result in the Swans missing out on the finals for the first time in six full seasons under Roos.

The Swans mentor, who will this week set a club record of 153 games as first grade coach, conceded some of his players were out of form.

Roos stressed slumping Sydney would need to play a lot better against their bogy side Collingwood, who have won the last five clashes between the two clubs, than they did in last weekend's defeat by Geelong.

"We might have to bring a few young players back in this week, because if you do lose or you are not playing well, at least you're gaining something from it," Roos said.

"There's not a lot to be gained from losing with the same sort of team.

"At least this year we've introduced a lot of new players."

Always unfazed about ladder positions, Roos denied he could not overlook that aspect even though his team could finish out of the eight with two more losses.

"It's all relative, if we don't make the eight and we blood some young kids, that's a positive," Roos said.

"If you make the eight and you haven't blooded any kids and you finish in the first week of the finals, what's better?

"I think every team sets out to make the eight at the start of the year and we are still in the mix, so that's a real important factor at this time of the year.

"I would certainly rather be playing in games that definitely have a degree of pressure and then the young guys who are playing them are learning something."

Roos suggested Kieren Jack and Patrick Veszpremi could each be in line for a recall.

But he felt the amount of young blood he could inject into his ailing outfit was limited by season-ending injuries to Tim Schmidt and Kristin Thornton, who he said would have definitely been in the team at this stage.

"The cupboard is a little bit bare in terms of we've got a lot of rookies, but they can't (all) play," Roos said.

Roos said full forward Michael O'Loughlin was still out injured and wasn't sure whether fullback Leo Barry would return this week from his hamstring problem.

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