Swans coach Dean Cox says “things are changing by the hour” with the club’s five suspended players as Victorian police prepare to conduct interviews in Sydney.

Detectives are set to fly north in the coming days in a sign of progress on the alleged scandal stemming from a Pullman Hotel incident on the eve of the finals.

Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner, Nick Blakey, James Jordon and Riley Bice were stood down for the rest of the AFL season for breaching club standards.

Separately, the police investigation into a report of an alleged sexual assault has continued. No charges have been laid and 7NEWS is not suggesting any criminal wrongdoing.

The five players have not attended training while Cox prepares his second-placed side for Saturday’s home qualifying final against Brisbane.

“One thing I’ll always do is support my players. I’m staying in dialogue with those five players while they’re away from the football club,” Cox told AFL 360.

“I speak about their welfare, how they’re going, if we can support in any way. I think we need to understand that’s one thing I’ll always do.

“I haven’t spoken to them at all about the police investigation, and also I think we need to understand that there’s still an investigation in process. We need to get all the facts on that before we make any assumptions.

“It’s purely about support and I’ll continue to do that.”

Asked by Gerard Whateley if the players could return to the fold, noting it would be “an extraordinary circus” if they made an appearance at training, Cox gave an eye-opening answer.

“I think things are changing by the hour and the day,” he said.

“So people upstairs ... I’m privy to some of those conversations ... about how we best manage our football team at the minute and focus as heavily as we can on this weekend’s game whilst also supporting those players while they’re not at the club.

“There’s no timeframe on when they will return, we’ll keep talking about it each day and assess the situation from there.”

While the five players are not around the club, Swans great Jude Bolton insisted it was still “hugely distracting” for the group to prepare for the finals knowing they will be without three of their stars and five teammates in total.

Sydney last month shook off the initial shock to defeat North Melbourne by 53 points in an emotional first match since the alleged scandal.

A week out of the spotlight during wildcard round offered a reprieve but they now face one of football’s toughest tasks against the back-to-back reigning premiers.

Sydney defeated the Lions by 44 points at the SCG earlier this season but then went down by 43 points at the Gabba in June.

“It’s a huge ask for them to just try and refocus,” Bolton said on Sunrise.

Cox’s preparations suffered an unrelated blow last week when key assistant coach Mark McVeigh departed the club effective immediately to start as Essendon’s new senior coach.

The Swans will play at least one more game in the finals regardless of the result on Saturday but Bolton said the off-season presents “an opportunity to reset as a group” as the club ramps up its review into the team’s culture.

“It’s probably understanding where the standards have slipped and how that has evolved over the particular time,” he said.

“Culture is never set and forget. It’s constantly about the people who are in there, the way they’re living and breathing, the values and the behaviours day in, day out.

“It’s constant vigilance. In any organisation you’re really checking and doing that pulse check on your culture at any particular point. It’s a real focus for them in the off-season to address this.”