The U16 Slater & Gordon GIANTS Academy went down to the Sydney Swans Academy 10.13 73 to 5.6 36 at Blacktown International Sportspark on Sunday morning.

The game was hotly contested despite the wet conditions and was a good opportunity for the young players to test themselves against the best players in the state,with the Academy Series used for the selection of the U16 NSW/ACT Rams squad.

Slater & Gordon GIANTS Academy manager Lachlan Buszard was disappointed with the defeat, but said the young players involved would learn a lot from the experience.

"It's not about the result at the end of the day, the development of these players is the most important thing, but it was disappointing to lose as we did.

"The Swans played really well and linked up beautifully and we had a couple of players a little bit off their game and probably didn't use the football as best we could and we were a little "fumbly" under pressure and probably didn't want the football as much as they did.

"It was another good learning experience for the players. These games present some challenges, such as the tyranny of distance, not training together all those sort of things, but you still need to play well, the first six or seven minutes we had 80% of the ball we had all the ball in the forward fifty and we just couldn't convert, if we had of taken those chances then it's probably a different game," said Buszard.

Buszard said there were positives to come out of the game, with several players expected to be included in the U16 NSW/ACT Rams side, and that the important part now was the future development of the players involved.