PETER EVERITT'S career ended last night - and so did Sydney's season.

Paul Roos was reluctant to forecast whether that meant the end of the Swans' good times, but it was an issue the coach raised after a listless performance against Collingwood in round 21. After the Bulldogs steamrolled their opposition last night, the question is unavoidable.

Ruckman Everitt, a three-time All Australian and a best and fairest champion at the two clubs he played for before joining the Swans in 2007 - St Kilda and Hawthorn - announced his decision to his teammates in the dressing rooms as soon as they left the MCG after what was the 34-year-old's 291st career game. Veteran Ben Mathews pulled the pin some weeks earlier, but with several other 30-something veterans still on the list, Sydney, in weeks to come, will carefully consider the make-up of their roster.

"You've got to decide how you get back to winning a premiership, which is obviously very, very hard to do," Roos said after the match that ended Sydney's sixth successive finals campaign.

"We generally like to have the players determine their own futures and generally they make the right decisions. So in terms of the rest of the list we'll assess that over the next three or four weeks.

"I think we've improved on last year, which is really something we tried to do in the off-season. We tried to address some of the things that we knew we weren't quite as good at last year. We made a few trades and played some young kids this year, so I think we have improved as a team, but I think everyone's a fair way behind Geelong."

It was a midfield of Cortinas and Ferraris that contested the 2005 grand final - the colourful description coming out of Sydney ahead of that most memorable of September battles between them and the West Coast Eagles.

Three years on and the semi-final played between the Swans and the Western Bulldogs was a face-off between a unit of hardened professionals and a troupe that had previously foundered on the big stage.