Senior coach John Longmire has praised his side for selfless football in the wake of a record-breaking win at the SCG. The Swans finished Round 15 with a massive 171-point margin against the West Coast Eagles.
On a record-breaking match
“From our perspective - from go to woe - it was really good quality team football. A really high-quality game.”
“It’s not so much about the percentages, it’s the outcome and it’s the way we went about it was terrific to watch. It was a really good team performance. Everyone contributing when they needed to and everyone sharing the load. It was a high-quality team performance which was the biggest thing.”
On coaching the winning side
“You know what’s worked and there’s three quarters of it and it was just a matter of going one more quarter and they were able to do it. There’s times as a coach that you step back and let the players go. I didn’t have much involvement, they were in the moment and they knew what they had to do.”
On the midfield
“When you’re winning contests like we were and contested footy, our pressure was through the roof even though we had so much of the ball which is a really good sign. We had a good balance to our game. When we went forward we still had discipline and they shared the ball around each other and helped each other finish off they’re good work. That was the thing that stood out.”
On Tom Hickey
“He had a limited amount of preparation as did a number of our players had where they missed big chunks of the season. It was good to get him back into form today. West Coast had a fair share of injuries in the ruck as well but I thought Tom’s game was very very good tonight. It was terrific.”
On what stood out
“The thing that stood out to us the most was making your teammate look better. It was high-quality and to get the thrill out of helping out a teammate and to see someone finish off the work makes you feel good.”
On the messaging for players
“Next week is a new game and so we go into next week with a new challenge in front of us. We were terrific there’s no question about that and next week we go to a new game and a new challenge. That will be different to what it was tonight and we need to make sure we prepare for that.”
On the forward line
“We had a fair bit of footy but at different times we haven’t finished off our work as much as we like but the ability for each of our players to share the ball going forward opened up a lot of options ahead of the ball. We understand once again that West Coast was compromised with personnel but we had to do what we had to do…”
On Errol Gulden
“He’s had an outstanding year. He had a great year last year so he’s building. He’s started his career strongly. I think he’s a fantastic competitor, he knows his footy, he works really hard at his game, harder than any player on our list so he gets rewarded for that. I’m sure he’ll put tonight aside and get his head into next week like he always does.”
On injury concerns
“We subbed Mills. It got to three-quarter time and thought that was enough for him. He started the game so well. It was great to have him back in the team and he was outstanding. As was Isaac who’s back in the team. We didn’t play Joel for the last 15 minutes of the game just to make sure he was okay. We’ve had a few that have had compromised runs at it so we wanted to make sure they got through all ok. Tommy was good [in the VFL] today and has pulled up well so that’s a good sign.”
