John Longmire needs to change his ways or risk another season coming up short in finals, writes Dermott Brereton
SYDNEY won a premiership and then added Lance Franklin. So why do the Swans insist on playing dour, defend-at-all-costs football? DERMOTT BRERETON says it’s time for the club to throw out the game plan.
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THERE is much to admire about Sydney. There has been for a long time.
The Swans have compiled an excellent list and their coaching staff, led by an A-Grade football citizen, is very solid, but last Saturday raised questions that have been ignored for some time.
Everyone within a club is beholden to do the right thing by the club. So if I was a Swans’ board member I would ask the director sitting next to me: “Is this really the way we want to play?”
Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan says we are “in the entertainment industry”.
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And even though his Lions have won only four games this season, compared to 11 for the Swans, the Lions are only six behind the Swans’ goal tally.
Make no mistake, the Swans are good, but even with Lance Franklin, the best forward that the game has seen since Wayne Carey, the Lions are more exhilarating.
It is as if Sydney coach John Longmire is so set in his ways, the ways of his predecessor Paul Roos, that he refuses to change his team’s style even as that team evolves.
What is bewildering is why the Swans would pay a king’s ransom to get a freakish forward — Buddy — and still play a style that produces 12 goals on a good day.
Especially when whichever way you want to slice and dice it, since Franklin landed at the Swans their salary cap has not allowed them to retain Shane Mumford, Lewis Jetta, Toby Nankervis and Tom Mitchell.
The Swans won a premiership and then added Franklin. So why the insistence on playing dour, defend-at-all-costs football in their back half?
Buddy has been brilliant, but how much more brilliant might he have been if the Longmire-led Swans played a brand that complemented him? What if they placed more emphasis on keeping the ball in attack, rather than protecting the backline at all costs?
In Round 4, the Swans were one point in front of Western Bulldogs when the precocious talent Ollie Florent took on Dogs ruckman Tim English, running away from him and kicking the sealer.
It was one of the goals of the season, but Longmire and Roos both said Florent did the wrong thing.
Young Ollie played the game with wide-eyed enthusiasm. It was a glorious moment, but one that by now will have been coached out of him. For that is the way of the Swans, unless your name is Franklin.
In Round 15 when Richmond’s Nick Vlaustin took a screamer over Buddy, it was Dan Hannebery who set him up. But, for me, the issue was that, as Hannebury arced his run back into the corridor, he could have kicked the ball from the back point of the square, diagonally through to the other point on the Swans’ half-forward line.
He had former forward George Hewitt playing upfield, closest to that opposite corner.
Hewitt was to the inside corridor of his opponent, which meant that if he had turned and run in that forward-flank direction, he would have run onto the ball first and maybe even kicked a goal.
But it was so apparent that Hewitt had lost his creative licence to set up a score like that. He changed direction to run towards the congestion.
In 2013, if a Swans board member was discussing what the return for getting Franklin to the club should look like in five seasons — the end of 2018 — another couple of flags would have been anticipated.
The Swans retain roughly the same nucleus of their 2012 premiership team, but still they frequently play to protect their backline.
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The saturation of numbers down back allows Dane Rampe to peel off and go to the goal square to act as the last-line guardian.
Heath Grundy (left out last week for the first time I can remember) has great physical strength and judgment, but he doesn’t have great agility or pace, so the extra Swans numbers suit him.
Grundy’s GPS numbers show he actually covers a lot of ground, just not all that rapidly. He can no longer be left against a key forward who will turn him around.
All other coaches pretty well know what Longmire is going to throw at them.
He is a solid citizen who literally says: “You know how we play. Now you just have to be better than us.”
I think the Swans are better than that, though. Their young guys coming through, like Ben Ronke, Will Hayward and Florent, are seriously good. They have real talent, so let them play, challenge them to be match- winners alongside Franklin.
Richmond won the 2017 flag, but it wasn’t until the last month of the season when Damien Hardwick tweaked his team and changed the style of play that things clicked.
Some minor adjustments and, after a narrow loss to the Cats at Geelong, the Tigers never looked back.
I understand that for Longmire not to have his team play very defensively would be difficult for him, but, if he doesn’t change, the Swans could be looking at another creditable finish, between third and sixth.
In finals, the Swans rarely kick more than 70-odd points, and that means four games in a row where the opposition is always in the match.
Time to put open this machine up, John, and see what it can do.
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