PAUL Roos or an assistant will direct Sydney from the boundary line all season, with the Swans coach hopeful of improving the game-day communication between his coaching team and players.

Roos coached last night's two-point loss to St Kilda from the sidelines, and said it had helped him better assess match-ups, how players looked, and to remain calm during the tense final quarter.

"You probably just feel a little bit more in control of the game in a sense," Roos said. "You know with a skill error there's not much you can do other than tell the player not to do it again, but you are able to assess the players — how they look, how they look on the ground and when they're coming off.

"There's so much preparation that goes into the week and so much communication that goes on between players and coaches, then all of a sudden you get to game day and there's sort of no communication between players and coaches. So it's really just a communication thing, trying to get the message directly to the players … "