The Sydney Swans shocked everyone bar themselves by making the finals after consecutive bottom-four placings.
They had a good chance to progress in the finals but an errant goalkicking performance cruelled them in a one-point defeat to the cross-town Giants.
But coach John Longmire has warned his emerging group against complacency as they try to maintain their positive trajectory.
Longmire speaks to Marc McGowan about his 2022 plans in the latest AFL Coaches Clipboard special.
Let’s get the obligatory Buddy Franklin questions away right off the top, John. How is he looking on the track?
He’s continued his program in the off-season, he was able to get some good results off that last year, particularly the strength work and running he was able to do in the last off-season. He’s been training but he doesn’t need to be flat out at the moment. He’s just making sure, at 35 years of age, he’s getting as many sessions under his belt as he possibly can, which is what he’s been doing, which is great to see. But we also know there’s plenty of time to go before we need him at his absolute best and, at 35, we need to make sure we get the timing right.
He’ll start the season on 995 goals. What’s your guess for when he brings up the magic 1000?
I don’t have the value of a crystal ball and I don’t spend any time thinking about it. It’ll be a wonderful achievement, there’s no doubting that, it’s probably one of the hardest things to achieve in modern-day football and I’m not sure how many others in the modern era will get to that mark, but it’ll be a great achievement for him, there’s no question.
We all know his nine-year deal expires next season. What will you weigh up in deciding whether to extend his contract?
He’s just training and putting the sessions together. Contracts usually take care of themselves, so there’s no point spending a lot of time talking about it. It’s just good to see him training and it’ll be taken step by step. Hopefully he’ll get into the season early on and contribute really well to the team. I just don’t get drawn into speculating about it, because he’s still got one year to go and we’ll see how he goes.
We’re about four months removed from the Swans’ one-point elimination final loss to the Giants. How do you look back at it, and in particular the 2.7 to one behind final term?
I think if you look back on that game, any final you get knocked out in is something to reflect on. Getting the balance of reflecting on that one particular game and also what was achieved during the season usually takes a couple of weeks, but it was a disappointing way to finish, that last quarter. We kicked inaccurately, which cost us dearly, but there were some other things through the course of that game that we felt we could have done a bit better. The Giants were better at executing than we were, and if we’d won that game and kicked a little bit straighter in that last quarter, there still would have been some things coming out of that game that we needed to improve, so we’re focusing on those areas.
Outside of the disappointment of that early finals exit, you must’ve been pleased overall with the club’s progress after consecutive bottom-four placings? What were you most pleased with?
There are probably a couple of areas but the one key area for us was player availability, we had some key players over the last couple of years, particularly in 2020, who were out for various reasons, and having access to those guys is really important, we hope that continues, because it makes a difference, particularly when you’ve got a younger team coming through, we were able to have three debutants in round one, that doesn’t happen very often, don’t think it’s happened, and three guys going on to be nominated for the rising star in the first three weeks, that only happens if you get some younger talent, they train hard, but also those older, experienced guys are around and playing, and that makes a difference. The evolution of our list is important, the evolution of our playing style is important, we started doing some work on that in 2020 and continued that and made some bigger steps last year, so it’s a number of things we were pleased with, including the important step from transitioning into a new football department soft cap that’s severely reduced and put people around us who can develop the players.
It was an incredibly testing season for your players, fellow coaches and staff because of the Covid-19 outbreak in Sydney. The group was together constantly. Are you expecting any flow-on effect into season 2022, as far as team dynamics and getting used to a ‘normal’ routine again?
Yeah, it’s interesting, we spent five-and-a-half months out of 13 months travelling, and a lot of that time was without family. Last year we were able to see family for a small period of time, but as with everything in life, everyone has a different view on it. I think in the majority of cases we’ve had a relatively positive experience, in particular the younger players, on the road and living together and playing football, and fortunate enough to still be doing our jobs when a lot of the community weren’t. The gratitude of being able to do that wasn’t lost on our playing group. While there were some challenges, there’s no question about that, it was kept in perspective about what we were still doing and what we were still able to do, we were very fortunate, and our young playing group, I was confident at the end of 2020, even though we won only five games, some of the benefits out of the hub experience would hold us in good stead and I was hopeful some of that continued last year and hopefully into this season.
As much as Buddy’s renaissance was a great storyline, it was the year of the kids at the Swans. Errol Gulden, Chad Warner, Justin McInerney, Joel Amartey, Hayden McLean, Braeden Campbell and Logan McDonald. How much more can we expect from that group, and potentially some new names?
We’ll need that group to continue their improvement. Our younger players are very important players to us. In that elimination final, we had 16 players under 25 years of age, and that’s without Mills, McDonald, Campbell, Stephens, Blakey and a few others. Our younger players play key roles in this footy team and we need that younger group to continue their improvement. That’s where our leap will come form, and it doesn’t just happen. Because we improved last year, it doesn’t give you the right to automatically improve again this year. You have to earn that right again, and you have to keep improving again, so that’s the next step for our younger team, to keep on understanding that you need to keep on turning up every training session, every game, to keep improving and with a large part of our team under 25, it’s important that continues.
Jordan Dawson and George Hewett were the two high-profile departures. Dawson had a breakout season last year and you were very keen to keep him, in particular. Who will be the beneficiaries and what will be the main changes with them gone? I imagine there will be bigger roles for James Rowbottom and Dylan Stephens, and will we see more of Isaac Heeney in the midfield?
It’s always a combination of a few, we believe we made some changes to our team last year throughout the course of the season, with Tommy McCartin, Justin McInerney, Nick Blakey, we’ve had a constant evolution of our team, this year that next level of evolution will happen and needs to happen, our plan was to get Isaac through this year, he’s kicked 36 goals, and our second-highest score assists player, he’s a very important player in our front half but we’re always looking to get him more in the midfield but he’ll also be pushing forward because he can hit the scoreboard and provide real headaches for the opposition, so that will be just a natural evolution from him. Dylan Stephens is another one, Errol Gulden, these guys we believe can play larger midfield minutes, and remember that guys like Warner and Campbell spent a fair bit of last year injured, so those guys with a pre-season under their belt, we look forward to what they can bring to our midfield group as much as our forward group.
Peter Ladhams was your big trade acquisition and someone who projects to be your long-term No.1 ruckman. Will we see you playing Tom Hickey and Ladhams together every week and did you have to reassure Hickey that he is the top dog for now?
There are two parts that I probably don’t spend a lot of time in – wondering what the set up looks every week and talking about who’s top dog. I think there’s absolutely a chance those two will play in the same team and that will add a real flexibility to our team. We thought Tom Hickey was terrific this year, he was really good, but it did make us a bit vulnerable at times. He did his PCL and was able to still come back and play after missing only one week, which was a great effort, we think the two of them can play in the same team and it was great to get Peter, he’s just 23 years of age, he turns 24 this year, and we believe he has a great future at the footy clubxjmtzyw in the ruck role, but with Tom doing a good job, we think it’s a great way to integrate and continue the improvement of our footy team.
The emergence of Hayden McLean and Joel Amartey, as well as Logan McDonald’s presence, has certainly impacted on Sam Reid. You’ve also added Ladhams to play as a forward-ruck. Is Reid’s best path to the senior side in defence in 2022?
I spoke to Sam at the end of the season and we discussed that, what he’ll be doing over the pre-season, and he’ll be spending fair bit of time down back in a defensive role, training with our defenders, we think he’s got the ability to play in those key defensive roles and he reads the play well and we think it gives us great depth in that area, if he’s able to do that. He’s got very good experience. We have Melican and a few other guys down there, McCartin is obviously still developing in that key defender role as well, so we think the addition of some experience down there will be a good thing. He can certainly play at both ends, but he’ll be spending a fair bit of time in the pre-season doing some defensive work.
You decided to give Paddy McCartin another shot at AFL level. Where does he fit into your plans?
He’s come back in good shape and he’s been training well, so he’s another one who can play at both ends of the ground. We understand the more options in those key roles can only help the team.
You’re entering your 12th season as the Swans’ senior coach and your undoubted highlight is the 2012 premiership. Do you feel like you have the core pieces to win a flag with this group?
I know how hard they are to, firstly, get there and, secondly, definitely to win, so I’m under no illusions about how difficult it is, but we needed to and we’ve gone through the evolution of our playing list in the last couple of years and our playing style and we’ve done that. We need to continue to do that, and it’s important we all need to understand – staff, players – and I believe we do, but just because we’ve improved, it doesn’t give you that right to automatically improve again without doing the hard work. We know we’ve got a big summer ahead of us to keep getting better. We were percentage off top four but we also understand teams can come up from underneath that didn’t make the finals and challenge those teams that did make finals. You don’t get the right to automatically qualify, so we think we’ve got some good young players and we’ve got a core group of senior players as well, and we’re looking forward to what the new season presents as far as challenges. We’ve been presented with a number of challenges with Covid and having to move with three hours’ notice a number of times over the last few years and we’ve been able to cope pretty well with those challenges as a football club, which I’ve been really pleased about, and whatever presents in 2022, we need to be able to cope with it, move on and keep getting better, and I’m confident we’ve got the players and staff to keep striving to get better.
The Swans played an exciting, attacking brand in 2021 not always associated with the club. Can you give us any insights into what we can expect from your team next season?
We’ve just got to keep the balance right, between attack and defence, and we need to improve our contested footy. The top four teams in contested ball last year were the teams that played in the preliminary final – there’s no escaping that. But the basics of the game have always stood up and will always stand up, and we need to improve in that area and to keep getting better as a team, because that’s what the best teams do.
What remains the biggest challenges for a team playing out of the Sydney market, and is there anything you’d like to see change?
I think there are a couple of challenges. The challenge is the lack of content that’s been here for the last couple of years from a broad sense and we’re really looking forward to getting back on the SCG in front of our home crowd and having that real connection with our supporters. We can’t wait for that to happen, we’re really hoping to re-engage with that live-game experience that we were able to fortunately have a little bit of at the start of 2021, but we want these supporters to come along and see some of our younger players play and run around and enjoy their footy, and see a guy like Lance Franklin be able to still play football is a real thrill, so we’re hoping to re-engage with that.
In a broader sense, the challenge is still picking up talent from our local markets. That’s always going to be a work in progress for teams north of the Murray. I think there were two players taken from Queensland and NSW this year. Trying to recruit and retain players is what the challenge is always going to be.
We’re very fortunate to play AFL footy in this city, in a general sense, we think we’ve got an exciting time ahead, being less than 12 months, probably 10 months away from moving into our new facility, which has got everyone really excited, it will be absolutely state of the art. I was fortunate enough to go through a VR tour of what it looks like and it was magnificent. The players and staff can’t wait to get in there and we’re on the verge of having our first AFLW team, we think that’s really exciting for the football club, and we’re just fortunate to be able to play AFL footy in this city, it’s a wonderful city to play in, and we think with the younger players we’ve got coming through, our new facility, AFLW starting, it’s a great time to be involved in the Swans.
