Greater Western Sydney took Sydney's best shots and then landed the biggest blows as they cruised to a 42-point win at the SCG but Heath Shaw may find himself in trouble after a sledge on Swan Tom Papley.
The winless Swans kicked the first four goals in little more than five minutes on Saturday night but GWS booted the next nine majors en route to a 15.15 (105) to 9.9 (63) victory.
It was the Giants' first success at the SCG and equalled their biggest win over the 0-5 Swans, who they have beaten convincingly in their past three contests.
Lance Franklin kicked three goals for Sydney with the last in the final quarter bringing up his 800th, but he didn't celebrate as the Swans' fate was sealed.
Toby Greene kicked four goals and former Swan Shane Mumford dominated the ruck, logging a massive 62 hitouts for the Giants. GWS have now won four in a row while the Swans are in danger of missing the finals for the first time since 2009.
Giants forward Jeremy Cameron was mightily impressive with his physicality, pressure and work rate, tallying a career-best 24 disposals and forcing Swans defender Heath Grundy off the ground for a while after a jolting contest.
The Giants showed their resilience by storming back after a disastrous start in which they didn't rack up a single disposal until after Sydney's third major.
GWS awoke from their early slumber but their first five scores were behinds; Cameron the chief culprit with three.
But it was a short-lived reprieve for the Swans as the Giants found their rhythm and swelled their advantage to 32 points by halftime.
Sydney started the third quarter like the first, with Gary Rohan and Callum Sinclair kicking goals to slash the deficit to 20.
Gary Rohan and Callum Sinclair quickly trimmed the deficit but any hopes of a full-scale Swans comeback were swiftly doused as the Giants responded with goals to Adam Tomlinson and Greene.
Sydney kicked the last two goals of the quarter to get within 22 at the final change but the Giants still had plenty in the tank and kicked four goals to one in the last quarter.
Greene was reported for rough conduct on Heeney, while Giants defender Shaw was picked up on a microphone allegedly calling Papley "a fu----g retard."
"We had a brief discussion about it (the sledge), I don't know the level of detail, so we'll use the next 24 hours to have a really good discussion about actually what happened," Giants' coach Leon Cameron said.
He was particularly pleased after his side restricted Sydney to just five goals after their early onslaught.
"We stayed composed and made some decisions over the next 10 minutes in terms of some personnel around the footy and then we finally got some hands on the footy," Cameron said.
"But it was pleasing because it was a different way to win. In the past maybe that could have turned out to be a six, seven goal quarter to the opposition and one to us."
Sydney coach John Longmire admitted his players were down on confidence.
"We jumped right out of the blocks and like good teams do they came back and take their turn, but their turn was too long," Longmire said.
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