Sydney Swans coach Paul Roos has fired a rare broadside at his fringe players, declaring they have missed opportunities to earn regular first-team places because they aren't listening and learning lessons.

The faltering Swans, who have lost by 73 and 53 points to Melbourne and Geelong respectively over the last two weeks, are desperately clinging on to eighth spot.

Despite those successive drubbings, the Swans have made just one change to their side for Saturday's SCG clash with Hawthorn, with rookie forward Trent Dennis-Lane coming in for another youngster, Brett Meredith.

Roos, whose coaching tenure at the Swans will finish at the end of the season, delivered some rare public criticism of his side on Thursday.

He wanted to give other players a chance to play senior football, but made it clear they hadn't earned the right and he wasn't about to hand out games as a parting presents.

"Unfortunately our seconds aren't putting enough pressure on," Roos told reporters.

"A lot of players we would like to have stepped up haven't been doing that, so that's a bit disappointing.

"For our seniors, it's probably given two or three of them a chance to play this week whereas you would have liked some more debate at match committee.

"Unfortunately some of our young guys just aren't getting the message at the moment.

"There's clearly guys playing seconds that we would like to be playing seniors but their performance hasn't warranted selection.

"You get emails from people outside the club (saying) 'why aren't you playing this person, why aren't you playing that person?'.

"The selectors are not going to hand out games, that's not what we're going to do. We've never done that as a footy club and I'm not going to start doing that with four games, possibly more, to go."

"The moment there are two or three guys that should be playing that just aren't, simply because of their own lack of performance and more specifically, they just don't want to do what we're asking them to do."

Roos admitted some of his under-achieving players had all manner of excuses for not performing more consistently.

"They'll chuck up homesickness, or the bloke doesn't kick the ball to me, or I'm playing in the Canberra league, or we've got too many top-ups, but I don't buy that.

"They might be selling it, but I'm not buying it."

He declined to nominate any individuals.

One youngster who has pleased Roos is midfielder Nathan Gordon, who has been promoted from the rookie list to replace the retired Henry Playfair.

While a number of youngsters have been blooded this year, including top 2009 draft picks Lewis Jetta and Gary Rohan, the careers of other emerging youngster like Lewis Johnston and Patrick Veszpremi have stalled.

Some of his senior players, including club champions Brett Kirk and Ryan O'Keefe, have been criticised by the likes of Jason Akermanis, but Roos said Sydney's veterans have been "reasonably solid".

With a smile on his face, Roos said Akermanis had left one player off his list, possibly eluding to the controversial former Bulldogs star, whose contract was recently terminated.

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