By Vince Rugari
The way we decide our sporting champions in Australia is uniquely unforgiving. It doesn’t matter if you’ve had a consistent year on grand final day – at the end of it, you’re either a winner or a loser.
As such, in assessing his time as coach of the Sydney Swans, there’s just no escaping John Longmire’s 1-4 record on the AFL’s biggest stage and, in particular, the dismal defeats in 2022 and 2024. Harsh as it is, and as hard as it is to even reach the pinnacle, Longmire will be remembered by some footy fans as a four-time failure – a guy who could show his team where the promised land is, but couldn’t actually take them there often enough.
John Longmire’s time as Swans coach is over - but the memories live on.Credit: Rhett Wyman
But that’s not how Swans fans will remember his 14-year tenure in the top chair. Not those who have lived through every bump, mark and tackle.
They’ll remember these things instead.
He won them a flag
First things first: in just his second season after taking the reins from Paul Roos, Longmire guided the Swans to the ultimate glory in the 2012 grand final. It was the fifth VFL/AFL flag in the club’s 150-year history, and only the second since 1933. And yes, because the foundations for it were partly laid by Roos, some people tend to siphon some of the credit for that grand final win away from Longmire – but that perspective misses a couple of crucial points.
John Longmire and Jarrad McVeigh lift the 2012 premiership trophy.Credit: Getty Images
First, it’s often harder than it looks to fill the sizeable shoes of a successful coach, particularly one like Roos who became such a figurehead for the Swans. Second, Longmire also helped lay those foundations as an assistant coach from 2002 onwards – initially under Rodney Eade, and then under Roos, who took over as head coach halfway through that year.
It’s not as if he just rocked up and won with a good team; he was a huge part of the reason why they were so good in the first place.
He missed the finals only twice
The numbers behind Longmire’s coaching record are hard to believe in an equalised competition like the AFL. In 14 seasons, the Swans missed the finals under him only twice – in 2019 and 2020, and the latter was not a normal season on any level due to the pandemic. His ability to rebuild on the run was remarkable, and probably essential due to the fickle nature of the Sydney sporting market: if the Swans were down for too long, the entire code risked sliding into irrelevance, so it was important for everyone that they were consistently competitive. And they were.
Ask a St Kilda, North Melbourne or Gold Coast fan if they’d like to watch their team play finals in 12 out of 14 years. Longmire gave Swans supporters so many treasured memories, and turned a historically underachieving club into a powerhouse, deeply respected across the entire AFL.
And that’s without even mentioning the way he was able to tweak their playing style through that period, from a dour, more defensive side to, more recently, one of the best teams to watch on their day.
His relationship with his players was unmatched
There’s a reason those who played under Longmire speak of him as more than a coach. He was a father figure, a confidant, someone they could turn to for advice on any problem, on or off the field. That sense of pastoral care was one of his standout traits – along with his ability to adjust to different personality types and generations.
John Longmire and Adam Goodes in 2023.
Longmire was one of Adam Goodes’ loudest and strongest defenders during the racism saga that led to his sad exit from the sport. He helped Jarrad McVeigh through family tragedy. He gave Lance Franklin the space he needed when he took time away from the sport to address his mental health – and then gave him a shoulder to lean on. These are just the stories we know about.
They don’t give out awards for this stuff. It’s bigger than footy.
He was a class act in every way
How many times do you remember hearing Longmire complain? About umpires, scheduling, opposition tactics, tribunal decisions – anything at all, really? You could probably count them on one hand.
Where other coaches let their emotions get the better of them, Longmire always stays cool. He didn’t deflect blame or use excuses, he didn’t create distractions, he didn’t play media games. Trust us, we’ve tried; we wished he would sometimes. But his level-headed, stoic approach to life and football demanded respect, and has become the whole club’s philosophical blueprint.
Longmire’s impact goes further than that: it’s not in his job description, but he also became a spokesman of sorts for the entire AFL “movement” in NSW, publicly pushing for improved infrastructure, defending initiatives such as the Swans’ academy against Victorian critics, and calling out the game’s head office when more action was needed in the frontier markets. He didn’t get paid for that. He did it because he cared.
He leaves behind a team in contention
Some coaches don’t know when their time is up. Some do, but they rage against the truth, and then reality itself – and by the time they’re frogmarched out the door by security, the joint they’ve left behind is in an absolute mess. That’s not the case here. Longmire has made the call at the perfect time, just as preseason training is set to begin. Not later on in the summer, or just before round one, or midway through next year after trying to coach on and belatedly realising it was the wrong thing to do.
It means Dean Cox, his now-former apprentice, has plenty of time to adjust to the various contours of life as the big dog, and it means his players can come to terms with the change at their own pace over the summer, too. A new voice was probably what this team needed after their horror show against the Brisbane Lions two months ago; Longmire has recognised that he can’t take them any further and acquiesced, for the good of the club.
If Cox can address the mental deficiencies that led to that grand final defeat, there’s no reason they can’t challenge for the 2025 premiership. And this squad is so young, there should be plenty of flag tilts after that.
Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.