HAVING lost players for more matches through suspensions this season than the combined total of his first six years as a coach, Paul Roos has taken the step of "reinforcing" to his team they must be more disciplined and play within the rules.

Roos admitted his frustration with the problem after the club yesterday accepted a four-week suspension for Amon Buchanan's rough-conduct offence in Sunday's loss to Hawthorn.

That brings the total matches Swans players have lost this season to 13 - Barry Hall eight, Buchanan four and Adam Goodes one.

Roos took over midway through 2002 and from then until the start of this season, he had just four players suspended for a total of 11 matches - Hall five in 2002, Stuart Maxfield three and Darren Jolly two in 2005, and Buchanan one last year.

"The players are under no illusions the way I feel as a coach, and I reinforced that to them again yesterday," Roos said. "Those are the rules and you've got to play within the rules. We have been a disciplined team and we want to continue to be a disciplined team.

"Absolutely, it's disappointing when you lose a player for something like this. Amon would be very disappointed in himself and, yeah, it is frustrating as a coach to lose players who are healthy and can play footy.

"We made it pretty clear to our players what's expected. You do something like this in today's environment and you expect some sort of consequences, and they've got to be aware what we expect as a footy club. If they go outside of that, they are putting themselves at risk of being suspended."

Roos said he supported the increased scrutiny and emphasis put on the rule of protecting a player whose head is over the ball, but added that "unfortunately, a few players have been slow to embrace the new rules."

Goodes said yesterday the team needed to rediscover its discipline.

"If you look at it through Barry's two instances, my three reports and now Amon Buchanan, our discipline is being questioned and that's one thing we have to get back to being," Goodes told radio 2KY yesterday.

"And with those individual players, myself included, we are letting the team down with these undisciplined acts and we've got to clean up that part of our game and make sure we start playing the footy [instead of the man] … when we play the footy, we are a much better team."

Goodes said he felt that after successive losses and an unconvincing win against Melbourne, the team was in "a bit of a mini-slump." He said they had to "get back to playing for a team and snap ourselves out of playing the way we are playing".

Sydney sit in fourth position, just two points ahead of the Magpies, and badly need to rebound and win Sunday's match against Carlton. "We've shown we can play against the good sides for a period of time but it's just that against the better teams you've got to play better for longer and that's what we haven't done the last two weeks," he said.

■ The tribunal has suspended Fremantle utility Dean Solomon for eight matches for his late elbow on Geelong's Cameron Ling, AAP reports. It is the biggest single tribunal penalty since Carlton midfielder Greg Williams received nine matches for interfering with field umpire Andrew Coates early in the 1997 season.