Francou, who headed up the club’s development department for the past 12 months, will take on a new role as an assistant midfield coach next season alongside Stuart Dew, who will continue his role as midfield and strategy coach.
Swans senior coach John Longmire said Francou, who was an accomplished midfielder in his 156-game career at Port Adelaide, was a perfect fit for the role.
“We’re happy that we’ve got Josh Francou, who has been with us in development for 12 months, he’s come across into our stoppages, so he’s come into our senior group of coaches,” Longmire told SwansTV.
“He was a great midfielder himself for Port Adelaide and was a fantastic player.
“He’s coached in his own right at North Adelaide and has a teaching background, so he can bring that to the stoppage group and he’ll be working with Stewie Dew in that midfield area.
“He’ll add some great expertise to that area.”
With Francou moving into the senior role, Marty Mattner will take on a new role within the club’s development department, while Jared Crouch will step up as the Head of Development.
Mattner, who finished up his playing career in 2013, will specifically focus on developing the next generation of defensive talent and will have a game-day coaching role with the Swans reserves.
“We’ve got Marty Mattner going into Development, so he’ll be working with our younger kids and in particular some of our young defenders and Jared Crouch is now Head of Development,” Longmire said.
“We’ve got a few changes there and a few shuffles in our ranks, but we hope that we’ve got the best possible group that we can.”
On field, Longmire said he had been pleased with the way his players had returned to the club for the pre-Christmas training block.
The coach said the entire group was coping well with the physical demands of the pre-season and were motivated to put in a big training campaign ahead of the new season.
“They have come back in good nick physically and mentally, so it’s good that they were all able to go away and freshen up over the break and then to come back in good condition,” Longmire said.
“We’re really happy with how everyone is going and they are all hooking into training at this time of year.
“We’ve done a fair bit of physical training already, which is maybe a little bit more than what we’ve done before at this time of the year.
“It is a tough block pre-Christmas because we try and get as much foundation into our skill work and into our running work.
“A combination of those two areas means that there are a lot of tired boys around at the moment, but it’s been very good so far.”
Longmire said Dane Rampe, Brandon Jack and Tom Mitchell were among the club’s best performers, and highlighted Dan Hannebery’s impressive effort in the three-kilometre time-trial as one of the best individual efforts to date.
“There are a number of blokes who have come back in terrific condition,” he said.
“We’re really happy that all the younger kids, who came back before the senior group came back to training, are in terrific condition.
“Guys like (Dane) Rampe, Brandon Jack and Tom Mitchell have set a really high standard to be able to put some real pressure on physically.
“Then the next group coming through, the older blokes, have been just as good, and we’ve had Daniel Hannebery turn up and run just under a PB for his three-kilometre time-trial.
“That was a really good sign and we’ve got a number of those blokes in really good condition.”
With a three-week Christmas break ahead, Longmire confirmed that the full senior squad would hit the track throughout January, including Adam Goodes and Mike Pyke, who have made later starts to the pre-season program.
“We’re still mindful of the blokes who will be coming back in early January, and then there will be (Mike) Pyke and (Adam) Goodes who will be a bit later in January to the full training,” he said.
“Other than that, we expect that most of our players will be available for that first week when we get back, which is really important for us.”
