Months after a second grand final hammering in three years on AFL’s biggest day, premiership-winning Sydney Swans coach John Longmire is set to stand down.
According to multiple reports, the 53-year-old will tell Swans players in Sydney he has decided to call time on his 14-year tenure at the club. A press conference is scheduled for 1:30pm AEDT.
It comes after the Swans’ 60-point hammering in this year’s AFL grand final to the Brisbane Lions at the MCG – the club’s second capitulation in three years after going down to the Geelong Cats by 81 in 2022.
John Longmire looks dejected after their AFL Grand Final loss to the Brisbane Lions at the MCG on September 28, 2024. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/AFL Photos/Getty Images)
Longmire, who took the Swans to the flag in his second season as head coach in 2012, had considered taking extended leave following September’s most recent heartbreak. It was the Swans’ fourth grand final loss under Longmire following grand final defeats in 2014, 2016 and 2022.
His future had been the subject of much discussion in recent months after Swans chief executive Tom Harley threw his full support behind the coach.
Harley said despite the “really challenging” period for his club following the 60-point demolition by Brisbane, Sydney was staunch in its support of its most recent premiership coach.
“What I love about John is his commitment to the whole of club,” Harley told Melbourne radio station SEN.
“We are unbelievably fortunate and unbelievably grateful to have someone like him at our helm.
“He will process (the Grand Final) and that will take time and we all just need to acknowledge and respect that.”
Assistant coach Dean Cox had been groomed as Longmire’s successor and is the likely front-runner to take over.
Cox, a six-time All-Australian and West Coast Eagles premiership-winner in 2006 where he dominated the Swans, joined the Sydney coaching structure at the end of 2017.
He reportedly knocked back an approach by his former side in August to take over as coach.
Swans assistant coach Dean Cox knocked back an approach to take over the West Coast Eagles earlier this year and is the front-runner to succeed John Longmire. (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)
Former coach Paul Roos, who orchestrated the Swans’ 72-year drought in 2005, recently said the Swans would consider to struggle on the big stage if Longmire didn’t adapt his game plan to suit the wider and longer MCG pitch.
“They are no longer a hard, tough, defensive team that is hard to score against,” Roos told the ABC.
“They are a team that’s hard to beat because they’re so talented, but they’re not hard to play against. They play a style that suits their home ground, which is further exposed on the MCG. How many times do we look at the screen (in the grand final) … very, very rarely there are more Swans players in the frame than Lions players. They didn’t even get numbers to the contest, which I think is the bigger concern.”
The MCG is 160m long and 141m wide compared to the SCG which is 5m shorter and 5m narrower.
The Swans great also called for a squad overhaul ahead of the 2025 campaign.
“That conversation now has to take place (who needs to go). They have to put good players on the market that change the narrative,” he said. “Again, we’re talking margins. We’re talking about a great footy club.
“I’m not getting carried away like some pundits about John Longmire and culture and that sort of stuff. There’s no question that the talent in terms of management, their structure and the football club is there.
“But it’s two (grand finals) in three years with largely the same group. There are some holes in the organisation in terms of the game plan and now potentially personnel. If John and the coaching staff firmly believe that there are players in there that can’t perform on the biggest stage, you have to get rid of them. It’s a brutal industry, but that’s just the reality.”
That rebuilding phase will now fall on someone else’s shoulder.
Longmire’s legacy will be mixed.
He will be remembered as one of the best coaches in the game, but his failure to take the Swans to a second flag under his watch will be hard to shrug.