Sydney has a few headaches after brutal final loss to GWS Giants at ANZ Stadium

SYDNEY has a few headaches after being thrust into a do-or-die semi-final following its qualifying final loss to GWS Giants at ANZ Stadium.

Sydney players walk off ANZ Stadium after losing to GWS.

FOR Sydney’s senior coaches what might have been a relatively leisurely time at Sunday’s NEAFL Grand Final against Greater Western Sydney has suddenly become a much more compelling occasion.

With the AFL’s Rising Star Callum Mills unlikely to play again this year after suffering a hamstring injury, and both Josh Kennedy and Kurt Tippett suffering heavy knocks, the Swans will have to find at least one replacement from their reserves team.

Harry Cunningham who was replaced by Mills for Saturday’s game, Jeremy Laidler and veteran defender Ted Richards will now know there is more at stake at Blacktown than a NEAFL premiership.

There will be an one even more compelling task for Swans’ coach John Longmire and his staff — balancing the need to rest players after a relentlessly tough game while preparing them for another potentially tough final.

Longmire said he was not surprised by the brutality of the first half of Saturday’s final when both teams played with almost reckless intensity.

Lance Franklin can’t mark opposed to Lachie Whitfield. Picture: Phil Hillyard

“At this time of the year that is what you expect,’’ Longmire said. “You have to make sure you get ready for it. Obviously there was nothing in it at half-time but that’s probably what this time of the year is about.’’

But Longmire conceded he was disappointed that the Swans had been out-tackled 96 to 64 by the Giants — usually one of the trademarks of their own game.

“We didn’t have the weight of numbers to play against a really, really good team,’’ he said. “They out-tackled us and the tackles that we did lay weren’t effective enough and we couldn’t convert when went forward the way we should.”

Isaac Heeney and Ben McGlynn react after the siren.

The Swans will have the consolation of returning to the SCG and, perhaps, the benefits of not having played last week during the AFL’s first post-finals bye. Something that might the now daunting task of winning three more finals more negotiable.

“We don’t know,’’ Longmire said of the benefit of the extra week’s break. “The good thing is we have earned the double chance and we get another go next week. That is the positive. We get to look at what we didn’t do that well tonight and try to remedy it.”

Originally published as Sydney has a few headaches after brutal final loss to GWS Giants at ANZ Stadium