By Jake Niall
John Longmire was, as a pair of associates put it, cooked. His decision to quit, with 12 months remaining on a contract worth more than $1 million, is a measure of the lunatic pressures that AFL senior coaches endure and of the reality that coaches have only limited life spans at particular clubs.
When one considers what Longmire has achieved – and not achieved – in his long and decorated stint as head coach at Sydney, his decision to walk from the money and drug of competition is less remarkable than the fact he lasted 14 years at the helm of one club.
Longmire, as he acknowledged, had been thinking about the finish line for more than a year and the Swans had planned for the end of 2025 as the probable time for a handover.
Dean Cox is the new coach of the Sydney Swans, replacing John Longmire.Credit: Getty Images
But, in the course of this season, it became harder for Longmire, who friends reckon was a fair chance to resign, rather than re-sign, if the Swans had won the grand final.
But that sunny afternoon at the Colosseum turned into another day of infamy, which knocked Longmire around, as it would any coach who had experienced their fourth loss and third embarrassing performance in a grand final. He went away, as Andrew Pridham and Tom Harley advised, to ponder if he could continue.
It is clear, too, that this was Longmire’s call. There was no gentle nudge or encouragement to quit from the hierarchy due to grand final fallout. Had he wanted to coach in 2025, he would be doing so.
The baton change to Dean Cox differs from the handover from Paul Roos to Longmire in that there was no formal agreement – Longmire having been guaranteed the position, with a contract lined up and the arrangement announced, 12 months before Roos finished up. North Melbourne, his old team, had dangled the job at the end of 2009, and Geelong had offered him a senior assistant role under Mark Thompson, so the Swans swooped once Roos signalled he’d had enough.
Cox did not seek any guarantees, either, according to sources familiar with the situation – which is consistent with the new coach’s words at a media conference that was rightly more focused on “Horse” riding off into the sunset.
Cox’s coaching style? Expect that he will be a people-first coach.
Sydney’s faith is reflected in awarding him a four-year contract.
“When you know someone as well as we know Dean, we don’t have any concerns or doubts,” said club chairman Andrew Pridham of the four-year deal. “I think he’ll be coach for a long, long time.”
There is little point guessing whether Longmire will coach again. History would say that, once refreshed, coaches find it difficult to reject the devil’s candy of another senior gig. Today, and for a while yet, the possibility of coaching again will not be on Longmire’s mind, as his family’s farm in southern NSW and the soft landing of “executive director of performance” at the Swans beckon.
But we can be certain that Longmire will be sounded out by clubs over the next 12 months, as teams teeter or fail. If Carlton falter, they would have to consider him. Ditto for the Demons, the Crows and quite a few other teams that are desperately seeking short-term results.
The Tasmania Devils will speak to him, as this masthead established shortly after his resignation. He might not want to coach the Devils, but Brendon Gale and his team will ask the question, as they must, at the appropriate time.
Longmire has been warned to be ready for phone calls next year. His presence in the market, even if he eschews the temptation, will certainly launch as much speculation as any free agent in the AFL.
It is rare that anyone leaves a job in which one is due $1 million or thereabouts – Joe Daniher’s walk-away is exceptional on that front. But Andrew Ireland, who arranged the succession from Roos, said Longmire had lived with the even heavier pressure of coaching a team that constantly contended (only missing finals in 2019-20). “Every game you play is critical,” said Ireland, now an AFL commissioner.
Longmire leaves the coach’s box with a legacy similar to that of Chris Scott at Geelong, albeit without having franked his “sustainability” – the word used at his media conference – with that second premiership that Scott landed in 2022 against the Swans.
Whereas his old teammate at North Alastair Clarkson coached Hawthorn to four flags from five grand finals – his only defeat to Longmire’s Swans in 2012 deemed an “incredible” Sydney performance by Ireland, given Hawthorn’s capabilities – Horse had the misfortune to coax teams to their maximum level, a grand final. Excepting 2012 and 2016 (unlucky against the Cinderella Bulldogs), they did not own the same level of talent as their opponents.
Longmire extracted more from the Swans than seemed realistic. Year after year, pundits such as this one would look at the names and wonder if they would make the top six or even the finals.
Discards, such as Josh Kennedy, Ted Richards and Rhyce Shaw became their best versions on his watch. He handled the tumult surrounding Adam Goodes with compassion and care for the champion, and had the uber-forward of his time, Lance “Buddy” Franklin, firmly in his corner.
He coached each individual differently, as Ireland observed – an indispensable hallmark of successful coaches.
But he could not take these Bloods any further. He was done.
As Pridham put it, few coaches “carry their bats” and leave of their own volition, as Longmire did. This Horse managed a graceful dismount.
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