Sydney coach Paul Roos wondered whether his good mate and St Kilda counterpart Ross Lyon wasted his time watching the unimpressive Swans squeeze out an ugly 18-point AFL win over lowly Melbourne at Manuka Oval on Sunday.

The Swans remain minute mathematical chances of making the finals but that wasn't the focus for Roos after his team's second win in the last eight rounds - a 10.8 (68) to 6.14 (50) victory.

Lyon, coach of the unbeaten Saints - who play the Swans next Saturday - was among the paltry crowd.

But it's doubtful whether he saw anything which would cause him nightmares ahead of the SCG fixture.

"Rossy Lyon came today and probably wasted the day," Roos said of his former Fitzroy teammate and Sydney assistant coach.

"He could have spent it with the kids, to be honest.

"If we play like that against St Kilda, we might be lucky to score."

Roos joked he could have done with the services of his former apprentice during Sunday's game.

"I rung him and he was having an omelette over the road at the time and I asked him what the hell he was doing up here," Roos said.

"He said `I thought I'd come and watch'. I said `well, you could have come and sit in the coach's box, you could have saved some time and sat with us, you could have helped us'."

Roos described the efforts of Sydney's former Melbourne ruckman Darren Jolly, who kicked a game-high three goals, as "exceptional".

His strong all-round performance was one of the few highlights of a dour game which attracted just 7,311 spectators, the lowest AFL crowd of the year.

Sydney never trailed and looked to be in control after leading by 14 points at quarter time and 24 at half time.

Melbourne outscored the Swans 2.5 (17) to 1.0 (6) in the third quarter to finish the term down by 13 and got to 11 in the final quarter but blew their chance with several wayward second half kicks for goal.

Roos extracted positives from the performances of some of his youngsters, including defender Nick Smith, schoolboy midfielder Dan Hannebery, key position utility Heath Grundy and midfielder Craig Bird, who got a late reprieve after Amon Buchanan was injured in the warm-up.

Roos said his biggest concern at the moment was the widening gap between Sydney's best and worst form.

"We played some really good footy today, but the difference between our best and our worst is a fair big gap," he said.

"So we need to really work as hard as we can on that over the next five weeks."

No Demon kicked more than one goal, though Liam Jurrah looked dangerous in the first half before being hobbled by an ankle problem, and Brad Miller snared 10 marks.

Melbourne coach Dean Bailey lamented his side's inability to capitalise on their second-half chances.

"We did miss some opportunities, goalkicking probably let us down, but I thought the effort was still there," Bailey told reporters.

Returning to the ground where he kicked a career-high six goals against the Bulldogs last year, Sydney midfielder Jarrad McVeigh led all possession-getters with 31 touches.

Bailey took some solace from the efforts of some of his younger players including Kyle Cheney, Jamie Bennell, Cale Morton and Ricky Petterd.

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