Sydney coach Paul Roos says he wants his team to close the gap between its best and worst performances as it prepares for a daunting fixture list in the closing weeks of the season.

The Swans' less than flattering 18-point win over Melbourne in Canberra on Sunday has kept alive the team's slim finals hopes but in reality the 2005 premiers face a mountainous task to make the eight.

While they are just a game outside the top eight, the Swans - who have to win every game to make the finals - face four of the top six sides in the run home starting with Saturday night's clash against St Kilda at the SCG.

But Roos, who has yet to miss the finals since taking over as full-time coach of the Swans in 2003, is more worried about his team's long-term development in coming weeks.

Roos admitted that Sunday's win - achieved in front of just 7,000 fans in Canberra - was 'pretty painful to watch' and was critical of his team's recent inconsistency not only from week to week but within games as the Swans won for just the second time in the past eight matches.

"We have got to try to maintain a reasonable level of consistency over the next five weeks," Roos said.

"It's about getting to a level of performance where your base line is not two out of 10 but five or six out of 10."

"We had a good meeting during the week (leading into the Melbourne game) talking about where we are at and trying to maintain standards and teaching the young guys how to play footy."

"At times (against Melbourne) we looked pretty good but for periods of time we dropped a long way below that so the message to all our players is for the senior guys to maintain high standards (in coming weeks) and for the younger guys to find a level of consistency that they can."