Sydney Swans midfielder Josh Kennedy said poor decision making and skill errors cost the Swans in Saturday night’s eight-point loss to Collingwood.

The Swans kicked 1.5 to the Magpies 3.2 in the final term, and were overrun by the visitors in front of a crowd of more than 45,000 spectators at ANZ Stadium.

Speaking to SwansTV after the match Kennedy, who was a standout for the Swans with 40 disposals, eight tackles and one goal, said Collingwood made them pay for errors made late in the match.

“Obviously it was very disappointing and we had our chances, but against the best sides in the comp if you make critical errors like we did at critical times of the game, then they are going to make you pay and they did,” Kennedy said.

“As Horse (Swans coach John Longmire) said after the game, it was just a real arm-wrestle throughout the game and it could have gone either way, but in the end they’re a great side and they punished us for some critical errors late in the game.”

The loss marks the Swans 11th consecutive loss to the Magpies since 2005, but Kennedy said the team had no time to dwell on this weekend’s result.

Instead, the midfielder said there were positives the team could take out of the contest.

“There is nothing we can do about (the loss), so we just need to get over it,” he said.

“I think we can take a little bit of confidence in the fact that we really had them at stages in the game, but we’ve just got to move on as quickly as we can.

“Hopefully we’ll get another chance later in the year to get back at them.”

Speaking alongside Longmire after the match, Swans co-captain Jarrad McVeigh said the team now needs to focus on decision making when games are in the balance.

McVeigh said strong performances under pressure is one of the hallmarks of the competition’s best teams, and is something the Swan are keen to master this season.

“In the end I think we just made a few structural errors, which good teams don’t make under pressure,” McVeigh said.

“We’ll improve on that and we’ll look at it on the tape and will improve for next week and we believe we can compete with the best teams now.”

But while the loss marks the first defeat in over two months, McVeigh said tonight’s game was just one of a number of close games the Swans have played in this season, and one of the few that haven’t fallen Sydney’s way.

“I think we’ve dealt with (the fine line between winning and losing) for most of the year.

“We’ve had Essendon come at us, Geelong come and us, and we did things right then.

“It was another close game tonight and we did do a few things that we weren’t particularly happy with but that just happens.

“We go to the Bulldogs this week and we’ll try and improve on those things.”