Swans coach John Longmire frustrated with Dane Rampe in wake of defeat to Magpies

Sydney Swans coach John Longmire has lamented Dane Rampe’s lack of composure under pressure - again - and also revealed the blow of losing another of his co-captains for several weeks.

• Brain fade costs Swans dearly against Magpies

Sydney Swans coach John Longmire has lamented Dane Rampe’s lack of composure under pressure, and also revealed the blow of losing another of his co-captains for several weeks.

Josh Kennedy is set for more than a month on the sidelines after tearing the medial ligament in his knee in Friday night’s gutting seven-point loss to Collingwood at the SCG.

Sydney will also be sweating on the health of George Hewitt (concussion) ahead of next week’s clash against another heavyweight opponent in Geelong, but Kennedy is a longer-term proposition after failing to take the field in the final quarter.

Dane Rampe had a tough time of it against the Magpies.

With the likes of Jarrad McVeigh, Kieren Jack and Nick Smith all out with injury and Heath Grundy now retired, Sydney desperately needs its leaders to lift.

On Friday night one of those senior figures Rampe had another brain fade when the match was on the line with Sydney down by just two points in a thriller that looked destined to go right to the wire.

Just two weeks after he got away with his goalpost climbing antics against Essendon, Rampe ran over the mark as Collingwood’s Chris Mayne missed a shot at goal, to gift the Magpies star a point-blank free that put the result out of Sydney’s reach in the dying minutes.

Longmire didn’t hide his disappointment and said Rampe needed to be better.

“There’s no question he tries hard. You’ve got to try hard and be composed, that’s the real challenge,” said Longmire.

“ … He just didn’t need to do it … he shouldn’t have did what he did in the last bit.

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“… There’s no question he tries hard. He’s been incredible this season as a key defender. He very rarely gets beaten, he’s such a competitor. He gets most things right - not all things right, but most things.”

Longmire described Rampe as a “rare breed” capable of matching up on the best forwards in the competition.

Rampe may be leading Sydney’s best-and-fairest for the year but at the moment his penchant for brain fades is stealing the headlines.

The Swans have big question marks over Dane Rampe and Josh Kennedy.

Longmire described it was a rare loss where his team haven’t taken a backward step, proud of the way his young Swans pushed a competition favourite to their limit and full of praise for six-goal star Sam Reid, who he said may have played his best game for the club.

The coach’s biggest concern was Kennedy.

“Yeah, it’s a medial. It could be a few weeks. We’ll have to wait and see. It’ll definitely be a few weeks I reckon,” he said.

“Sometimes you lose a game, you don’t go backwards. It’s probably how I felt. They’re (Collingwood) a fantastic team, last year’s grand final team. Won six in a row and we gave it a fair bit tonight. It wasn’t good enough in the end but jeez, I reckon we had a go.

“We lost Georgie, we lost Joey, a couple of others were pretty sore and they kept on going.”