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Sydney are rarely active in the AFL trade period but bucked that trend this year to bring in experience as they chase a premiership.

Sydney will head into the 2024 AFL season confident of contending for a premiership after bringing in four experienced recruits while maintaining a strong draft hand.

The Swans bucked their usual trend of staying quiet in trade and free agency while heading to the draft in favour of bringing in established players.

Football boss Charlie Gardiner confirmed Sydney will also attempt to trade up from their top selection, currently No.12, to add a prime draftee to their mix of recruits.

Melbourne ruckman Brodie Grundy and Collingwood midfielder Taylor Adams headlined the Swans' trade inclusions, while Melbourne's James Jordon and Fremantle's Joel Hamling joined as free agents.

The 2023 grand finalists, who dropped off this year, clearly consider themselves in the premiership window.

"We're really happy with the players we've brought in," Gardiner said.

"We've brought in four experienced players who we think can help us immediately. So we're really happy with how we played out.

"We've been a bit more active this year and we've targeted a couple of free agents who we think can really help us in James Jordon and Joel Hamling."

Grundy (194 games) will immediately become Sydney's first-choice ruckman when he heads north in November and will be joined by former Collingwood teammate Adams (206 games).

"We've gone through a transition of our list over the last five or six years, we went to the draft heavily, brought in a lot of good young talent, the focus was on retention," Gardiner said.

"We've seen some experience go out the door though the last two years in particular, over 1000 games of experience with (Lance) Franklin and (Tom) Hickey this year, (Josh) Kennedy last year.

"Which has sort of given us a bit more flexibility to look at targeting players and in particular targeting key areas of the ground that we need."

Gardiner hailed Jordon's running capacity and was confident Hamling's body could hold up to play a key role in defence alongside Tom McCartin, Dane Rampe and Aaron Francis.