Sydney Swans Assistant Coach Ben Mathews says his side is "embracing the arm wrestle of the season" as it looks to work its way back into finals contention. 

In this month's exclusive update for Sydney Swans Premiership Club members, Mathews spoke candidly about the start to the season.

Sydney enters Round 9 with three wins and five losses, and sits 14th on the AFL ladder.

Mathews said a lack of consistency and inability to play at the required level for a full four quarters had been hurting the team in the first half of the season. 

“Clearly not where we want to be sitting, no doubt about that, we're lacking consistency in a couple of areas of our game, certainly in the contest and defensively, so that's an opportunity to go to work,” he said.

“The boys are not shying away from that realisation, but now we can really work on our game together and there have been plenty of teams that have started the season, a little bit wobbly and it's up to us to dig ourselves out of it.

"I suppose, so for us, we roll our sleeves up and we get to work, we embrace the arm wrestle of the season."

Sydney has used 29 different players this season, including four club debutants. 

The midfield coach said he had been buoyed by the performances of the side’s younger, more inexperienced players.

“We've been really happy with our younger guys coming into the team that have played really strong roles,” Mathews said.

“Corey Warner, Braden Campbell, Caiden Cleary have done really good jobs, Tommy Hanily's done a good job over the first sort of month and a bit of the season, so credit to those young guys coming in to have a real impact and put pressure on others in the team.”