The Swans appeared to be on the rise after successive wins against West Coast and Port Adelaide but the Bulldogs brought them back to earth at Canberra’s Manuka Oval.
The Bulldogs booted 13 unanswered goals to lead by 69 points at half time, before eventually cruising to a 40-point victory.
Goodes said there would be plenty of soul searching among the players as they prepared for Sunday’s clash against Hawthorn at the MCG.
“The players that aren’t in good form know that they have to do something this week to put their hand up to make sure that they are ticking all the right boxes and make sure they can bounce back as individuals,” he said before training at the SCG on Wednesday.
“Just to reconfirm in their own minds that they are good players; that they deserve to be in the senior team. A lot of players are lacking a bit of confidence at the moment.”
Goodes was certain the team’s rollercoaster ride of form was due to the players’ mental approach to games.
Having worked through his own early-season form slump, the dual Brownlow Medallist said it was up to his teammates to make sure they entered every game in the right frame of mind.
“I know myself early on in the season, I wasn’t in great form and I knew it wasn’t because I wasn’t fit or strong, it was just that mentally I needed to deal with things a lot better,” Goodes said.
“Hopefully the guys know what it takes to play at the elite level every week. We had a fantastic win against Port Adelaide and I hope that guys just didn’t rock up to the weekend thinking it was just going to happen again because it just doesn’t happen like that in AFL footy. It’s too hard.”
Having been “smashed” in the centre clearances and hard-ball gets against the Bulldogs, Goodes said those areas would be one of the Swans’ main priorities against the powerful Hawthorn midfield.
“[Our contested possession] is really poor and it has been for a couple of years now,” he said.
“We’re just being absolutely smashed in that area and there’s no doubt that’s the area that we’re really struggling to pick up on.
“Against Port Adelaide we were able to do it and we had a fantastic win. There’s no clearer indicator than that - we win the hard-ball gets and we win by 55 points but we lose and we get smashed quite easily to a lot of opposition.
“A lot of players are very disappointed in their efforts. We need 18 to 22 players turning up to beat Hawthorn otherwise you could see what happened to us in a quarter of football like it happened against the Bulldogs,” he said.
