EVENTUALLY Sydney's ballistic gamestyle caught up with it, but not before Dean Cox's men put pride back into a red and white guernsey that looked so far away a month ago.

When the Swans suspended five players in August for the remainder of the season, president Andrew Pridham said they had "torpedoed" their campaign.

For a week, football was the furthest thing from anyone's mind, and in all honesty, most people outside the club agreed with him.

SWANS V DOCKERS Full match details and stats

The self-inflicted wounds left the Swans and their supporters hurting. 

A well-below-average crowd of just over 30,000 turned out in the final round of the home and season against North Melbourne and the rousing qualifying final win over Brisbane a fortnight ago was still played to well less than a full house.

However, it wasn't just the unexpected thumping of the back-to-back premiers that got the Sydney faithful back on board, it was the nature of the performance.

With an influx of youth, the Swans played with an infectious energy that was hard to not love.

It was again the calling card of Friday night's performance against the Dockers.

Leading by 27 points as the three-quarter time siren sounded, a spot in the Grand Final was within touching distance for the Cinderella Swans.

But alas, Hayden Young drilled an imperious goal from the left boundary line after that siren, and the Purple Haze ran amok in the fourth quarter to win by 12 points.

Sydney simply ran out of energy. The frenetic nature of the first three terms had taken a toll and the defensive intensity that brought them to the brink of victory was nowhere to be seen.

Under an avalanche of inside 50s – 23-5 in the fourth quarter – the previously impenetrable back seven looked vulnerable. They were spoiling instead of marking, fumbling rather than scooping the ball cleanly.

In some ways it was almost unfair for a team that had lost, by its own doing, five players and then another two to injury in Callum Mills and Harry Cunningham.

Pitted against the vaunted Freo Trio of Josh Treacy, Jye Amiss and Patrick Voss, counterparts Tom McCartin, Joel Hamling and Lewis Melican were heroic for much of the night.

James Rowbottom's back-to-back-to-back chasing and tackling efforts in the third quarter that led to an Angus Sheldrick goal epitomised his team's effort.

Brodie Grundy waged an engrossing ruck war with Luke Jackson all night.

Jai Serong enhanced his reputation, fighting tooth and nail in the midfield against his brother, Caleb.

Logan McDonald kicked another three goals to make it 51 for the year and looks set to deliver on the promise that came with his No.4 pick in the 2020 AFL Draft.

And while his teammates were out on their feet in the fourth quarter, Errol Gulden continued to draw on his seemingly limitless reserves to overlap run and apply pressure.

Without his suspended sidekicks Isaac Heeney and Chad Warner, Gulden elevated his game to an otherworldly level, adding 36 disposals and eight tackles to his 34 and eight clearances against the Lions.

Sydney lost the match and a chance to compete for a premiership, but they certainly won some fans back.