Sydney coach Paul Roos has revived memories of John Kennedy's famous trench coat when he revealed he had "wound the clock back" to breathe new life into the Swans' finals campaign.

The Swans had been labelled dead and buried two weeks ago but successive wins over Brisbane in round 22 and North Melbourne in their AFL elimination final have them back in the hunt.

And Roos says it's due to a return to basic football values - forwards playing in front, defenders punching from behind and everyone making sure they support their teammates.

As coach Kennedy famously screamed to the Hawthorn players during the 1975 grand final: "Don't think. Do!"

Ten points down at halftime last weekend against North, Sydney responded with a 13-goal second half to win by 35 points after Roos promised the Swans that if they stuck to their committed style of game then victory would be the result.

Swans co-captain Brett Kirk inspired his side with a 12-possession third term.

"The guys would have enjoyed the contest and getting back to some real physical football," Roos said at the SCG as the Swans prepared for Friday night's semi-final against the Western Bulldogs at the MCG.

"Just competing, being prepared to put your head over the ball and tackle well and all those things, just the basic things in football.

"So we'll just reinforce that and hopefully we can do that again this week.

"Just the way we are attacking the footy is a lot better over the last couple of weeks.

"Just getting back to basic football really when you look at guys like Kirky and Jude (Bolton) and (Jarrad) McVeigh, the way they went about the football in the midfield.

"Forwards in front and defenders getting back to just some real basic sort of spoiling.

"We wound the clock back a bit which has been good and allowed us to win a couple of games in pretty good fashion."

And it's not just Sydney who are barging their way to winning the vital contested ball.

Premiership favourites Geelong have marched into the preliminary final with a 58-point win over St Kilda and Hawthorn also advanced with a 51-point thumping of the Bulldogs.

St Kilda coach Ross Lyon, North's Dean Laidley and Bulldogs mentor Rodney Eade all lamented their players' inability to win their share of contested possession.

Roos said Geelong were an exceptional team.

"The way they play their footy they are very hard, they've got big bodies," he said.

"Clearly at the moment they are a step above everyone."

Roos praised his players for getting over the line against North through pure effort.

"It's the result of just working a lot harder and everyone working together as a team and then we kicked 13 goals in the second half," he said.

"But it all starts around the footy and guys in the leadership group have really stood up in the last couple of weeks.

"They've got a lot of pride. They love the contest. It's very hard over six years (and six successive finals campaigns) to consistently do it but when the stakes are at their highest which was the weekend, they were able to do it.

"Hopefully they can reproduce it because if we can we give ourselves a chance."

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