BARRY Hall has tempted fate with another eruption and wild swing that could see him before the tribunal in just his third game back from a seven-game suspension for knocking out Eagle Brent Staker.

Twenty minutes into the second quarter, Hall swung at Shane Wakelin and appeared to make contact to his head and Wakelin went to ground. The incident was caught on camera and shown on the screen at the ground.

If contact was made to Wakelin it was not flush in the manner of the hit on Staker but it appeared to have been a punch thrown in anger.

"Look I would rather not comment, I had my eyes on the footy we had a tangle of arms and that is as much as I knew about it," Wakelin said.

"One of the boys told me they saw it on the scoreboard afterwards and I didn't actually see it. I am not sure what happened. We will have to see Monday night."

Asked why he went to ground, Wakelin replied: "You have got to, you have got to try and milk a free kick whenever you can so I thought I would give it a crack and unfortunately I didn't get one."

Asked if he was hit on the chin he replied: "No, not with my chin." With your face? "Next question."

The Hall incident compounded a horrid night for the Swans who managed to boot just two goals for three quarters before rallying with four goals in the final term to lose 11.13 (79) to 6.14 (50).

The win puts Collingwood back into contention for the top four and continues the Magpies' dominance of the Swans — particularly at ANZ Stadium where last night 59,202 people turned out.

Despite containing Sydney to just two goals for three quarters of the match, Malthouse said he was unhappy with the lack of discipline shown by his side in giving up three 50-metre penalties, particularly one by Heath Shaw, which resulted in Sydney's second goal.

"It should have been one (goal). Very, very disappointed in our inability to control emotions at times," Malthouse said. "That is quite poor. We gave away three 50-metre penalties today which resulted on one goal and could have quite easily been more.

"When you get tight games like that you can't just give up an easy 50-metre penalty which results in an easy goal. The free kick was there the 50-metre penalty was there, the player (Shaw) needs to be reprimanded and he will be."

Questioned whether he was being overly harsh on a side that had been so solid defensively Malthouse said: "Lose the game by a point and tell me what I would be like."

Malthouse defended the poor kicking for goal — Collingwood booted 1.5 in the first term — as not being endemic as it had rarely been a problem this season.

"If this was every week I would have an issue but it is not every week. We were poor today and let me say Sydney were poor today.

"If this was a constant throughout the year, I would have an issue but I have no issue with it," he said.

Malthouse said the game was scrappy because of the pressure applied by both sides and the surface, which was a bit chopped up. "But give me 29 points and I would tick it off and say we don't have to play I would take it," Malthouse said.

"I really rate their discipline, I rate their coach and I rate their players. So perhaps we do well (against Sydney) because we try to take the best out of Sydney and utilise it."

The Swans challenged Collingwood in the final term with three goals to trim the lead to 21 points before Collingwood rallied.

The Magpies have given up leads in four games this year in the final quarter but last night managed to steady.