Senior coach John Longmire appeared in his weekly press conference on Tuesday, August 20 ahead of Round 24. He answered questions from the media and discussed striking the right balance, Chad Warner's recovery and mindset heading into September.

On mindset and the minor premiership

“Regardless of what’s on the end of that, we need to play really good footy against a team that puts enormous pressure on. Clearly, it's a strong position to be in, but we need to get through this week and then sit down and reassess. It's exciting this time of the year, the weather's good, there's hopefully going to be a massive crowd here at the SCG on the weekend.”

On using Round 24 to prepare for finals 

“My experience over many, many years has taught me that you can go too far one way or too far the other and not get the balance right. You've got to be mindful that you can go too far down a conservative route and then that impacts the way you play or the style. Obviously if any players are at risk or sore they don't play, but if they're fit and ready to go and there's no reason for them not to play. You can't live in the space of we shouldn't play half your team because you might get injured.”

On Chad Warner

“Chad was declaring himself fit last week, so he felt a little bit tight before the Collingwood game. He didn't say anything, he actually played really well and only mentioned it after the Collingwood game that he was a bit tight. We were really conservative last week giving him last week off.

“He trained really well today. If you consider we were conservative last week, he's still got to get through training on Thursday. Once again, it's looking at what's in front of you… It's looking positive for him at the moment.”

On resting Brodie Grundy and Will Hayward

“Only if they need it. Will's had a bit of a sore knee for a number of weeks and he actually feels a bit better today. I was concerned about him last week, but he feels a bit better today.

“Brodie's had a big workload, we've been able to manage him during the week, he's been able to have some time off and down tools and regenerate there as well. You can get into a bit of a rhythm of too much to not enough and you've just got to get the balance right. We've got some experienced coaches and experienced medical conditioning staff that try and sit down and make the right decisions.”

On giving the players a rest after two losses 

“Everyone wants to think that there's one thing that does something or changes things. There never is one thing. You go through the program; you think what you need at that time. We were on the road, we had six-day breaks.

“Those things were always indicating that we were going to give the players a few days away and that's what we did. We changed our training programs up. Our second half of the weekend was really strong footy, and we'll continue to manage that as we see fit, knowing full well it's an exciting time of the year… They were buzzing out at training today.”

On Lewis Melican

“We've always had great faith in him as a player. Generally, over the years when he's been fit and feeling good, we've generally played him because we know he can be a really important player for us, and he's been doing that this year. He's been fortunate that he's been able to play more footy and that's added to his form.

“He's been important. He's got great leadership ability. He sees the game well, he's strong in the contest, he takes his marks when he needs to, and he's been very good. We're pleased with how he's going.”

On the defence combination

“We've missed some of those guys for different times over the weeks and so when you get them back together and you play that together, that's always helped. On the weekend we had Callum down there, we put Ollie [Florent] on the wing. We've made some subtle changes to our team over the weeks and changed a few pieces around and hopefully that's been a benefit as well.”

On first quarter performances

“We still haven't cracked it because we still haven't got it right. That certainly helps if we've got enormous pressure around the ball. Adelaide brings enormous pressure around the ball. I sat there and watched their game on Saturday night, that game was full on. That was a high intense finals type game and so we'd better be ready this week when we jump out of the blocks because the other team will be, and we need to match that.”

On what Longmire needs from Taylor Adams

“I just think to continue to show experience, show his leadership, just play the system and put enormous pressure on around the ball. It's pretty simple. We thought we'd play Corey for the last 10 minutes. Give him a bit of experience in front of the crowd. What we do know is Taylor's got a great experience and certainly whether it's training or preparation that certainly helps.”

On the success of both NSW AFL clubs

“I have great pride in what the code has been able to do here. I'm talking about both teams. I've been here for a long time, 22 years and when I first came up here there was plenty of NRL posts at different ovals but not many AFL posts… there wasn't much being played at school level or anything like that.

On the club’s members and fans

“We feel so lucky and privileged that the fans have embraced us, the kids have embraced us, the supporters, the noise that we got out of the last game that we were here was enormous. The crowd was going off, you could almost feel the grandstand shaking and that sort of feeling is infectious. The players absolutely love it… It's so exciting as a coach and player to be able to hear the crowd so invested.”

On Tom Papley and Justin McInerney

“Paps and Juzzy have both been training. Juzzy did a fair bit more than what I expected today and moved really well so that's a really good sign. Both he and Paps won't play this week, but we hopefully expect them to train next week. Paps did a big session yesterday and he'll continue to do some more work this week. Hopefully they're tracking well for the first week [of finals]."

On the impact of Luke Parker

“He's been very good. He's been forward and on ball and he's been using experience. He's been invaluable with his leadership, helping Millsy. We always thought he'd have a contribution at some stage and at the back end of the year he'd be important and he's been important. The last couple of weeks he's been super and really valuable in his leadership and helping steer the younger guys around and doing what he needs to do in the important moments.”