Ask Charles Manson, Paris Hilton, the manufacturers of the Titanic or the Sydney Swans. Bad reputations are difficult to shake.

It is now three years, a premiership, a compelling grand final defeat, and a second Brownlow Medal acknowledging the special talent of Adam Goodes since Sydney were labelled the "ugly Swans" by media commentators including the forthright Robert Walls, a sentiment famously endorsed by AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou. However, the label has proven harder to remove than a "Vote Latham" sticker from a fridge door.

If the Ugly Swans tag is not being used to criticise them after low-scoring slogs such as last Sunday's controversial draw with North Melbourne, then it is thrown up to ridicule other teams seen to be playing a similar style - most recently St Kilda under former Swans assistant Ross Lyon.

So despised is the taint of the Ugly Swan that, like a fellow traveller during the McCarthy witch-hunts, Lyon was forced to repudiate his past, telling Melbourne's Herald-Sun that talk of St Kilda playing like Sydney was "a load of garbage".

Inevitably, the article found its way onto the desk of Swans coach Paul Roos, who, generously, took no offence from the words of the close friend who had helped mastermind Sydney's oft-vilified midfield tactics.

"I think Ross was just defending the way they play, their own style, not criticising ours," he said.

Naturally, Roos has his own theory about the enduring Ugly Swans reputation. "It all goes back to one comment in 2005 [by Demetriou]," he says. "If that had not been made then it wouldn't keep coming up."

Which is not to say Roos claims a game plan built on the defensive bedrock of a tight, hard-checking midfield and versatile back line should please everyone. Nor that he sets out to do so. "My responsibility is to the club's members, the board, the sponsors," he said when asked if aesthetics were a factor on his whiteboard. "We're paid to win games. Having said that, a lot of what you do is based on the personnel you have to work with."

How artfully Roos has cut his cloth is Swans lore. He dragged Brett Kirk from the scrapheap to lead a blue-collar midfield that included the tradesmanlike Jude Bolton, Amon Buchanan, Ben Mathews, Nic Fosdike and Luke Ablett to a premiership - and almost a second - against the Judd-Cousins-Kerr West Coast powerhouse. That stacks up as the ultimate justification of ends over means. But, as the battle-weary Swans came to a standstill in the first week of last year's finals, and after a couple of low-scoring matches this season - an opening six-goals-all loss to St Kilda and the controversial 64-64 draw with North Melbourne - the tactics that led to those drought-breaking achievements are again routinely derided: Ugly Swans.

Conversely, when the Swans defy that label - there was a 22-goal blitz against a meek Port Adelaide in round two and a late attacking flurry against North on Sunday - the critics ask why they don't do it all the time.

"You do have an opposition out there," says Roos. "You'd like Goodesy and [Tadhg] Kennelly and your best players to have the ball in their hands all the time and to be running and scoring, but they don't let you do that."

At a time when Geelong have set new standards with their skilful, high-risk, high-possession ball use - the highly entertaining response to the man-on-man tactics of Sydney and West Coast - a constant criticism of the Swans is they remain too set in their ways, swamping the midfield and starving the opposition of possession. But while he admires the Cats, Roos does not waver from his basic philosophy.

"We're probably a team that prides ourselves on winning a contest rather than relying on an opposition turnover and having one [player] loose back [to receive the ball]," he says.

In that regard, he is not referring to Geelong but those teams who have taken the Cats' attacking philosophy a step further. Roos does not name names. But the quickly burst bubble of Essendon, whose fast-running, ultra-attacking game plan earnt early praise after a 55-point thrashing of North, but was ruthlessly exposed on Anzac Day, gives some credence to his belief that supposedly attractive football is not necessarily sustainable.

"It's just too simplistic to say high scoring equals exciting and low scoring equals ugly," Roos said. "With Geelong, their ball use is exceptional and this season we've probably emphasised that with the players we've brought in. Martin Mattner, Ed Barlow, Craig Bird, Jarred Moore - they can all run with it or use it pretty well."

Even as a team in transition, there have been other reasons this year why the Swans have at times appeared ugly, or, for the harshest critics, uglier than usual. The pre-season loss of the dashing Nick Malceski and a late start by the now injury-prone Kennelly was a setback, with Kennelly's impact in the last quarter of the draw with North a reminder of his importance.

A slow start by Goodes and Barry Hall's suspension, just as he seemed set to regain top form, also hurt. Not to mention some stray goal kicking (6.13 v St Kilda, 10.12 v Geelong, 8.16 v North).

Tomorrow, Sydney face the exciting, hard-running Western Bulldogs. They will try to suffocate the Dogs' brilliant young ball-winners, Adam Cooney and Ryan Griffen, and starve their much-improved attack.

But at the same time they will attempt to spring Goodes loose in the middle, create the space for Kennelly, Mattner, Barlow and others to run, and give the mercurial Michael O'Loughlin the chance to pull a few rabbits from his hat. It is a delicate balance between defensive intensity and attacking flair that brings only one certainty: Get it wrong and Monday's headlines will decry the "Ugly Swans".