Read the key quotes from John Longmire’s press conference with the media on Tuesday, April 16. 

The Bondi tragedy

I wanted to start by saying on behalf of Sydney Swans how sad we are and our feelings go out to the people that were killed and injured and their families and friends last Saturday.

It's an absolute tragedy. I was talking to Trent Robinson about it last night. This is our club's areas.  This is our community. This is our people that come and support our clubs and to have it so close to home, it was really sad and a lot of people have been impacted. People from our club, our staff.

It's just a terrible tragedy that's unfolded in our backyards and our heartfelt condolences to everyone that's been impacted by this.

This is our local community, as you guys know. It's just five minutes away and all of our kids go there. Our kids' families go there. Our friends, we go there.

We travel there all the time and just by a stroke of luck, our friends and our family weren't there but a lot of people were on the other side of the luck and that's just what you feel so bad about.

Did you all get together as a group and have a wider conversation about it?

We spoke together yesterday at training.

Trent was saying that they and their players had a chat about it as well.

We're fortunate we've got a lot of good people at the footy club that support a lot of people and talked about it. There was various connections to it, as you'd imagine across the community.

We're like everybody else in the community. We have various connections but also because it's so close to home and our friends and family and kids go there all the time, it hits home a little bit closer.

What role can sport play this weekend to help bring the community together?

We can't play any role in the loss of life, clearly, and we'd never pretend that we could.

All we've got to be there is just to acknowledge it, I think. It's just a terrible tragedy. Hopefully the community can come together and get together, whether it's the Rugby League community and Trent, who I was talking about last night, or us in the AFL community, get together and support the local people that were impacted so dramatically.

An update on Luke Parker

No, he's not ready to play yet. It's taking a little bit of extra time.

We don't want to risk it with his injury, so he won't be ready to play this week. We'll see how he pulls up next week. He's doing some training, he's training with us, but he's not able to play yet.

Too big a risk. He hasn't had the clearance from the surgeon, so he won't be back this week.

On the Gold Coast Suns

We looked at the Gold Coast last week and their stats are through the roof. Their pressure stats, their turnovers, their ability to be able to score, everything around their game is really sound.

They're in fantastic form and they'll take some real beating, so we really look forward to welcoming them here at our home ground on Sunday and having a great hit out against them.

I just think they're a talented team. You look at their talent, but also their work rate. Their pressure on the weekend was 1.91, which is through the roof. They're a talented team, but they're also a team that works really hard and is hard and tough.

All those combined means that you need to be playing well and you've got to be playing well.

You know what's coming, but also you've got to be prepared to step into those contests and work hard on every facet of your game. We know we'll have to do that and we'll have to be at our best.

We look forward to testing ourselves out against a quality team.

The similarities of the Gold Coast Suns and some of the great Richmond Teams under the coaching of Damien Hardwick  

There's some similarities, but there's some changes as well.

Naturally with different personnel, you have different changes and you have different styles according to the personnel you've got involved. But there's some differences as well and they've obviously made some changes to that.

We'll turn our attention obviously to what they do, but we've got to be mindful of what we do as well and understand that we've got some strengths and we need to play to those.

On Tom Papley and our midfield

His work around scramble and around stoppage is usually really strong because of his quick feet. He's a real competitor. He's hard and tough.

And so those attributes normally account well for players around stoppage. He's not just a forward 50 player, but it's also Heeney, Rowbottom and Warner and that crew that will be going through our midfield that need to be taking on their midfield are in such ripping form. Their midfield last week was absolutely on fire.

So our midfield is going to be right on edge to be able to play well this week and look forward to a great battle in the middle of the ground.

On Errol Gulden’s re-signing

We were always confident, but you're never 100% confident because the contract hasn't been signed.

So whilst you're confident, you just go about your business and do everything you can to make sure that Errol's really looking forward to the environment that he's in for the next four years. And that's what he was able to do. We're absolutely thrilled.

He's such an important and integral player on our team. Now on the field and off the field. He's been a local boy since he was a baby. So to have a local QBE Sydney Swans Academy product picked up in the 30s, to be such an important player, but also commit for another four years, we're thrilled.

He's just one of those young players that we're really confident in.

On Brodie Grundy’s 200 game milestone

He's such a competitor. That's the thing we were aware of when we recruited him, but you don't really see it until you see him close up at training and during games, but he's a massive competitor.

For a really, really young midfield group and to be able to have him come into that group but also set the tone as far as his follow-up around the stoppage and scramble work has been excellent. He's really personal and he's fit into our club really well.

He's been a really valuable player.

On Logan McDonald's 50th game

I think he's tracking really well. As a young key forward, they take time and he's played 50 games in that period of time in a team that's played a bit of finals footy. So we think he's tracking really well.

Every game we see improvement. I watched the game again last week. Behind the goals, you see certain little attributes that he's able to do.

He's very smart. He's got great timing in what he does and he's getting better all the time. So we think he's tracking well.

On Taylor Adams debut for the club

I think it was a good start for him. He played half-forward in midfield and he was really busy. I think he had 18 or 19 possessions.

Most importantly, he pulled up well. We got him to 80 minutes and then we took him off the ground just before the end of the game. That was important for us to be able to give him his first game and to get him through to the stage where he actually pulls up well the next week.

We look forward to him adding on that against Gold Coast. We'll need his experience out there and we'll also need his intent and will to compete against a team that we know is hard and tough.

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