Every four years a premiership flag

SYDNEY assistant coach - and premiership collector - Stewart Dew aligns himself to the Olympic calendar.

Stuart Dew, John Blakey

SYDNEY assistant coach - and premiership collector - Stewart Dew aligns himself to the Olympic calendar.

"Every four years, a flag," said Dew yesterday as he added to his AFL premiership medallion collection started at Port Adelaide in 2004 and continued at Hawthorn in 2008, as a player.

"I've told `Horse' (Sydney coach John Longmire) that I'm taking the next three years off to come back in 2016 for my next premiership."

Dew was physically exhausted by his first two flags as a long-kicking line-breaking player.

His first as an AFL assistant coach had him mentally exhausted last night after he worked overtime to make the match-ups in the midfield stop hurting the Swans.

"It is a bit more stressful in the box," said Dew. "As a player, you don't realise all the work that goes into planning and executing a game.

"That was pretty stressful. We were getting beaten out of the middle, so I was constantly looking at those match-ups and set-ups to see what we could do. But when you are up against Sewell, Mitchell and Rioli it can come down to inches. And when you face a good team like Hawthorn, giving up an inch will make you pay.

"Around the ground we did okay at stoppages," added Dew, with the statistics showing Sydney was 30-39 at clearances outside the centre where the Hawks had a staggering 19-5 edge. "We win, so it looks okay. Had we lost, (stoppage work) would have been said to be the difference.

"The credit has to go to the boys - they were cooked a bit there. But that is the will of the players. It is what the club demands, not just the coach. New players come in and the old guys just drum it into them. You saw it with (former West Coast and Richmond forward) Mitch Morton - he kicked 70-80 goals in the reserves and still had to earn the trust of his team-mates - and he repaid it today with his two-against-one stuff today. It was outstanding - and that is what the players demand of each other."