Following Sydney's 51-point victory over St Kilda, John Longmire speaks to the media about upcoming potential team changes, Isaac Heeney, Luke Parker's 250th game milestone and more.
Read all the key quotes from this morning's press conference (Monday, June 27, 2022) below.
On Harry Cunningham and Justin McInerney who were ruled out of St Kilda game due to health and safety protocols
Those guys we hope should be available, we’ll see how the week progresses.
I think they come out Thursday, we’d expect them to be available this week.
On players maintaining form during the isolation period
Every club has had to deal with this over the last period of time. You make sure they’re doing what they need to do, but ultimately they can’t do a lot, they need to get themselves right. You see how they prepare during the week, they zoom into meetings that type of thing. Every club has had experience doing it, so you slip into a mode that you’re pretty familiar with, with players and staff that have been involved in it.
On playing two rucks
I don’t think it will be the thing that decides the game. We’ll work it out later in the week. It’ll be good to have Peter (Ladhams) available again and we’ll see how Hick (Tom Hickey) pulls up during the course of the week and see what mix we need to take on the Bombers on Saturday.
We’ll pick what team we think fits the best balance that we need for this week. We’ve got Lance, Sam Reid, Logan McDonald, Joel Amartey has been going well, Peter (Ladhams) as well. You have to pick the right balance in the team, and sometimes you get it right, sometimes you don’t. This week we’ll look at what the mix looks like and make sure Hick has pulled up well and was able to get through a full week of training.
On Isaac Heeney’s form
It’s just what happens, you get off to a great start to the season and it’s very hard to maintain that level sometimes. He was for the first five or six weeks there, he was probably one of the really top players going around and it’s hard to maintain that during the course of the year. Opposition teams put some work into you, different things, his role hasn’t changed a great deal. The break freshened him up a bit.
During the course of the game he runs like a midfielder but marks like a key forward and it’s about making sure he gets the right amount of rest during the halfway point of the year, he’s been able to do that, he’s come back and looks really fresh which is terrific to see.
On Isaac Heeney’s position in the team
He plays both roles (midfield and forward). If you look at over the course of the season, he’s played both, he’s played forward and he’ll get up as a high forward sometimes and get into the midfield whether that’s inside or on the wing, he’ll be a hybrid player. We need to utilise his strengths all over the ground and because he’s good in most areas that’s what we’ll continue to do, and we think that’s the best way to keep him involved in the game too, is to not only use him as a forward, but put him inside centre bounces when we need to when we feel like we could do with a run on the ball, put him on the wing and let him have a gallop up and down there, use his high running capacity. We’ll continue to use him in a number of different roles because we think that’s the best way to use him, and that’s the way to keep him involved in the game, keep him around the ball and of course the number one priority is what’s best for the team.
On Luke Parker’s 250 game milestone
Luke turned up here as a fresh faced young kid, drafted straight into the club. From the moment he walked into the place we knew we had a real competitor, he just loved playing. Going back to 2012, he was just learning the ropes but he just loved playing footy, loved getting out there and competing and he’s been like that his whole career. He’s a very consistent player, and a fantastic leader of the footy club. One of the biggest wraps you can give a player is that when they run out of the race, generally you know what you’re going to get every week. Luke’s been the epitome of that. Every week when he runs out of the race, you generally know what you’re going to get – which is a real contest and effort and play the game the right way. It’s a great credit to him to play 250 games and continue to be the forefront of pushing our younger players through and being a good role model for them.
On discussions of a send-off rule for concussions
I think first and foremost we have to make sure we don’t react to one incident. If we’re going to go down a path of looking at that, there needs to be more research put into how many times it happens, and the impact of it. To just come off the back of one incident and be a bit reactionary I don’t think is the way to go. We need to just take a deep breath, see if it’s a real issue or not first and foremost before we talk about supporting it or not.
I’m not going to sit here today and say I do support it or don’t support it, other than the fact that if it was to be looked at let’s make sure we do the right amount of research which I’m sure would happen. It’s just shooting from the hip if you’re saying you support it or don’t support it without looking at how many times it happens it’s probably not the way to go.
On facing Essendon
It’s irrelevant what happened two or three weeks ago, let alone what happened six or seven weeks ago, the game changes so quickly. Whether it’s injuries, form, we need to keep working on the things we want to keep working on. We’re still striving to be a consistent four quarter team. It was a good sign on the weekend our consistency over the four quarters, the week before, 25 or 30 minutes costs us. We’re still striving for that consistency to be able to get that four quarter performance. We know what their strengths are, we know they can be a really strong attacking team that can score heavily, their midfield can run in waves so we’ll prepare for their best, and make sure we understand what we do well as well.
