The Swans can understand why Jetta, playing against his old club for the first time, was booed but Pridham is adamant there were no racial overtones.

Swans fans have been accused of being hypocritical for condemning the booing of Goodes and then jeering Jetta upon his return to the SCG as a West Coast player on Saturday.

While it's commonplace for fans to give a heated reception to former players, the booing of Jetta showed a lack of appreciation for the public support he gave fellow indigenous player Goodes when the booing controversy ignited last year in Perth. Jetta had performed a war dance to a hostile Perth crowd in response to the raucous booing of Goodes by Eagles fans.

Jetta, a premiership player with the Swans, had been a crowd favourite in Sydney during his six years in the red and the white before returning to his home state of Western Australia to be closer to his family. Critics on social media believed the behaviour of Swans fans was hypocritical given the strong stance they took last year defending Goodes.

Pridham described the treatment of Jetta as a milder form of the reception given the previous weekend by Adelaide fans to former Crows star Kurt Tippett. "People shouldn't do it but there are people out there who don't get it, unfortunately," Pridham said. "Anyone who tries to compare it, which people are doing on social media, that Swans fans are hypocrites because of Adam Goodes, it's clearly got nothing to do with that issue of serial, week by week racially-based booing.

"The sinister overtones of what was going on with Adam is a completely different stratosphere, that's where you have to be careful not to get carried away with the whole thing. I'm disappointed people did it. I think you can say comfortably it was very much a minority of the crowd that were doing it. It wasn't every time he touched the ball. What can you say? A proportion did it and it was disappointing."

Asked if he believed there were any racial overtones in the booing of Jetta, Pridham said: "100 per cent [not]. You can put it in the bucket of it was the first game he played against us since he left."

Pridham defended his club's supporters but said the game would be better if players were not booed. However, he said the Swans would not be asking their members not to jeer Jetta the next time he plays in Sydney. "I think we can be strong and say it's inappropriate, people can moderate or choose their own behaviour," Pridham said. "It's a fine line in these things to making it clear what we feel as a club and trying to tell people what to do and risk certain elements doing it because they were told not to.

"We said this during the whole Adam situation. We understand if an umpire makes a bad decision he will be booed. If a player leaves clubs he'll be booed, hits someone he'll be booed for the rest of the game.

"That's culturally in our game, I'd prefer if it wasn't. Over time it gets less acceptable. I think people are starting to realise that."

With games against Brisbane, Essendon and Richmond in the next three weeks, the Swans are well placed to consolidate their position in the top four after the win over the Eagles. "It's important to keep winning at this time of year ... to get wins early in the season," defender Heath Grundy said.

"We've been playing some really good footy, but I think you can't ever rest on that, we've got to keep improving."