While Paul Roos openly admits preparations for next season and beyond have already begun in earnest, the intensely competitive Sydney coach insists his men will go down swinging in 2009.

Roos has shown his hand in recent weeks blooding the likes of schoolboy Dan Hannebery who made his AFL debut in last week's near fatal loss to Carlton.

The Swans are currently languishing in 11th spot having lost six of their previous seven matches and face the very real prospect of missing the finals for the first time in seven years.

Speaking prior to the Swans' regular Friday session at the SCG, Roos refused to declare the campaign a lost cause but vowed to persist with his youth policy at all costs.

"I think it's mathematically possible, if you win six games you play finals," he said.

"If we can do it on the back of the mix of senior and inexperienced players fantastic, but if we have to put 20 senior players in to finish eighth well I don't think we get much out of it."

"I'm still hopeful we'll win as many games as we can and the players have already spoken about that."

If they are to prolong the inevitable for another week, the Swans must defeat a vastly improved Melbourne at Canberra's Manuka Oval on Sunday.

But Roos, who says there are lessons to be learned from the Demons' willingness to start from scratch, knows Dean Bailey's men cannot be taken lightly.

"They're gaining benefit now in what they've been able to set up in the last 18 months," he said.

"They clearly went down a path of getting young players game time, and you can see the only way you're going to get better as a club and as an individual player is by just continuing to play those young guys."

"Clearly they're improving ... they're on the right path and they're going about it the right way and I think the way Dean's been juggling his experienced players and young players has been a really good plan for the future of the Melbourne footy club."

"They're going to be a really good side at some particular point because they're going through a little bit of pain at the moment."

Roos, who is yet to finalise his line-up for the Round 17 clash, believes the Demons' unpredictability is their greatest asset.

"When you're bringing players in and out of teams and you've got young guys they're harder to scout because you don't know a lot about their younger guys because they haven't played a lot of footy," he explained.

"So it is a little bit hard, I mean you know what Chris Judd's going to do because he's been around football a long, long time ... he's bloody hard to stop but at least when you're looking at an experienced player (you know what to expect)."