Sydney Swans near decision on Heath Grundy, Jarrad McVeigh futures
D-DAY is approaching on decisions over the playing futures of celebrated Sydney Swans veterans Heath Grundy and Jarrad McVeigh.
Sydney
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Heath Grundy’s AFL future may go on the line this week as Sydney coach John Longmire contemplates how he will respond to the club’s worst loss in a decade.
Longmire has hinted at making changes in the wake of the Gold Coast shocker, but there are no guarantees about what that means for 32-year-old Grundy ahead of Friday night’s crunch clash against Essendon in Melbourne.
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The Swans are set to sit down with both Grundy and fellow veteran Jarrad McVeigh in the next couple of weeks and decide whether or not to call time on their decorated careers at the end of this season.
If Grundy doesn’t get a recall in the wake of the humiliating upset loss to the Suns he may struggle to get another opportunity to push his case for another year at the negotiating table with only five weeks now until the finals.
Grundy was rested two weeks ago against North Melbourne but Longmire concedes form was a contributing factor to him not playing against Gold Coast.
Aliir Aliir and Dane Rampe have locked down the key defender roles and although Grundy is in the frame this week, crunch time is fast approaching on whether 2018 will be his swan-song.
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“It’s a combination of both (match-ups and form). It always is,” said Longmire.
“It’s a matter of both aspects of the game. He’d had a couple of quiet ones before we rested him.
“We’re working through a couple of those things and there’s the combination of that and match-ups.
“The week before you think changes aren’t necessary (but now they might be). We will weigh it up and put everything in perspective. “
Longmire doesn’t want decisions over Grundy and McVeigh to distract from the finals race, but admits the issue will have to be resolved by the end of the season.
“We’ll sit down at the appropriate time. It might happen (before the end of the season), but it’s not at the forefront of our mind because clearly we have to pick ourselves up and play better than we did last week for this week against Essendon,” he said.
“Those discussions will happen at the appropriate time and then it’ll evolve … just at the moment, a six day break coming up against Essendon isn’t the right time to do it.”
Longmire held a thorough review with his coaching staff and his leadership group yesterday, before the rest of the players arrived to go through the video of the Swans disaster — which must have resembled a horror film.
However, the brilliant coach has been around long enough that extreme reactions don’t work in the AFL.
Longmire has shot straight from the hip this week, but has stressed the importance of perspective.
“We were very disappointed with how we played on the weekend and very pleased with how we played the week before,” said Longmire.
“These are the extremes. We just need to balance things out.”
Longmire said Kieren Jack is a chance to return against Essendon on Friday night.
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