Pyke, who suffered a minor hamstring strain in the round seven win over Brisbane, won’t make the trip to Melbourne after not being able to get through training at the end of last week.
“(Pyke) tried to do some running last Friday and didn’t quite get to the stage we’d hoped he’d get to, so he’s been ruled out for this week,” Longmire told the media at the SCG on Monday afternoon.
With Pyke to miss his second consecutive match, Tom Derickx will again lead the Swans ruck division versus the Bombers.
In just his ninth game of senior football, Derickx shouldered the ruck responsibilities against Hawthorn pair Ben McEvoy and David Hale last Friday night, receiving assistance at the centre bounces from Sam Reid and inside 50 from Kurt Tippett.
Longmire said the trio combined and competed well, helping the Swans draw level on the clearance count at 41-apiece.
“We knew going into the game that Tom would have a pretty big workload,” he said.
“He did a pretty good job for us. He’s got in there and taken on two quality ruckmen and come out the other end okay.
“We knew that Sam Reid was able to do some work in there if needed, and we thought he did a pretty good job, and Kurt did some of the forward stoppages as well, so it was the combination of the three of them that shared the workload.”
Despite missing Tom Bellchambers, Essendon boasted a strong ruck line up in Brisbane on the weekend led by the spring-heeled Paddy Ryder, with Joe Daniher and Jake Carlisle both chipping in around the ground.
Longmire said facing the flexible Bomber talls will be a tough prospect for his side this weekend, but one he hopes they’re up for after gaining some more experience playing together.
“(Essendon’s) got Ryder in the ruck, who’s a really athletic ruckman, and he’s a big jumper and he gets around the ground really well,” Longmire said.
“And Daniher’s the other one; they’re not quite the standard ruckman, they’re those players that can play forward, and when they do play in the ruck, they’ve got a big jump and get plenty of the ball.
“We’ll go in this week with hopefully a bit more game time under Kurt’s belt, Reidy’s played a bit more in the ruck and Derickx obviously as well, so with Pykey unavailable, we’d expect a pretty similar make up.”
After starting the season with just one win from the first four fixtures, the Swans will head to Etihad Stadium looking to make it five successive wins heading into the round 10 bye.
The engine room around the ball has been crucial in the recent form turnaround, with Dan Hannebery (18.5 to 33.5), Josh Kennedy (27.8 to 33.8), Kieren Jack (17.3 to 24.5) and Jarrad McVeigh (24.0 to 26.8) all significantly increasing their average disposals per game from rounds one-to-four to rounds five-to-eight.
“Our midfield group over the last month has been a big factor in us being more competitive and more consistent,” Longmire said.
“Up until that point, there was one or two each week that were playing well, but not consistently over the entire group.
“Over the last few weeks we’ve had the weight of numbers in there, as far as (seven-to-nine) players going through that midfield rotation that have been able to play at a reasonably consistent level, so that makes a big difference.”
