Sydney coach John Longmire believes the careers of his young players will be made off performances such as Sunday's come-from-behind win over North Melbourne.

Losing 1013 games of experience heading into the match, Josh Kennedy's second quarter back injury only enhanced the young side's gritty six-point win to move back into the top-four.

Match-winner Aliir Aliir and Ben Ronke – two of the side's 10 players with less than 33 games experience – stood up in the dying stages to snatch victory.

"It's not very often you have wins that stick in your mind," Longmire said post-match.

"It's important for the younger players, and I said to them after the game, 'You've got to be able to use experiences like that to be able to become the players you need to become'.

"We lost over 1000 games of experience before the bounce and to lose your captain at quarter time, and to be able to rally like we did and (have) the kids all play a part was just fantastic to see.

"You've got to have a level of resilience and our younger players showed it, our older players were able to stand up."

The decision to manage Heath Grundy was made during the week, the key defender joining Jarrad McVeigh, Kieren Jack and Dan Hannebery on the sidelines.

It was a call the Swans' box would have been regretting with less than five minutes to play as Jack Ziebell kicked his fifth goal, combining with Majak Daw and Ben Brown for 13 majors.

Ziebell's goal prompted Longmire to swing Aliir forward after playing the final term loose in a backline that included debutant Colin O'Riordan.

"We were talking about it in the box, we needed to even that number up at that point, so we pushed him forward and it worked," Longmire said.

"Sometimes it doesn't work, it worked tonight, so we're happy with it."

Ronke's bag of five goals continued a stellar debut season, offering different options alongside smalls Will Hayward and the returning Tom Papley.

"His contribution has been of a really high, consistent level for us," Longmire said.

"Even the weeks he's not kicking the goals, he gets to the right spots and puts pressure on and has been really valuable.

"It was good to have his partner in crime back today, Tommy Papley.

"He's missed a bit of footy (with a hip flexor), to get a couple of those small forwards and one (Ronke) kicked the goals tonight was important."

Longmire conceded that Kennedy would be racing against the clock for a return against Gold Coast next week off a six-day break.