They were also dead last that year in effective disposals and effective disposal percentage, part of an overall concern with skill execution that coach John Longmire knew had to be addressed urgently.
A heavy focus on eliminating turnovers and taking advantage of opportunities in front of goal then had instant results, with the suddenly slick Swans going all the way to the 2012 flag.
Finishing fourth in effective disposal percentage, sixth in effective disposals and kicking a healthy 376.292 for the season, the rewards were obvious.
The bad news for rest of the competition is that they intend to improve those areas even further in 2013.
"We changed a few things a couple of years ago when I started," Longmire told AFL.com.au.
"We needed to keep moving. We still worked enormously on the defensive aspects of our game, but last year we also needed to have a skill focus.
"We changed our training program a little bit, what we did in the pre-season altered a bit, and we thought it really helped.
"Improving our skill execution under pressure, and importantly our conversion, was something we put a lot of focus on, and we needed to because it wasn't very good a couple of years ago.
"We improved it last year and we're going to try to improve it again."
Well known for their defensive prowess, the Swans were again the AFL's most miserly unit in 2012, conceding just 74 points per game.
But they also produced some scintillating football rarely associated with the club under Longmire's predecessor Paul Roos.
Quick handball chains that broke through the congestion, reminiscent of Geelong in its prime, were a welcome part of the Swans' style and should be again this year.
"It's through a bit better understanding amongst each other," Longmire said.
"Your younger players coming through get a bit better understanding through the congestion, which helps.
"We're certainly conscious of not overdoing it, but the players developed that over the course of the year, particularly the second half of the year.
"We try to train that under extreme pressure."
Even though they won a premiership, Longmire knows further improvement in all areas is vital.
"This is coming into my third year now and we've turned our list over enormously - we've got 11 new players on our list," he said.
"So there's another teaching process to go through, which our older players are really helping with.
"We can still get better at contested ball difference versus our opposition. We thought we improved our defensive aspect again last year, but we also became a bit better with the ball.
"This year we want to follow a similar path in regards to improving all aspects of the game."
James Dampney is a reporter for AFL.com.au. Follow him on Twitter: @AFL_JD
