If John Longmire has his way, there won’t be a very long post-mortem after the Sydney Swans’ surprise 28-point round one loss at home to Port Adelaide.
To paraphrase Longmire’s assessment of what went wrong at the SCG, the Swans were simply ‘out-Sydneyed’.
“We just lost too many 50-50 contests, whether it’s in the air or along the ground, the scramble, the loose balls - just the general 50-50 balls,” Longmire said.
“They were able to win them more than us and therefore were able to score easier.
“We weren’t as good as what they were in it. I mean, that’s just what happened. We need to make sure our mindset’s [right].
“You can’t get an easy ball in AFL football, you’ve got to win them, particularly when it’s slippery, and you’ve got to make sure you get the ball going your way.
“It’s pretty simple. Sometimes we look for a lot of different answers, but if you don’t win enough of those you tend to struggle.”
They were ‘out-Sydneyed’ because contested possession has become synonymous with the Swans’ brand of football over more than a decade.
It is the club’s lifeblood, but it became their Achilles heel against a Port side sporting three debutants and a ruckman, Paddy Ryder, without an AFL game under his belt since 2015.
Yet, throughout the whole game the visitors held the advantage, finishing with 19 more disposals and seven extra clearances.
“We need to get it right, whether it’s ruckmen or ground level. We don’t want to be putting our defenders under that type of pressure and obviously not getting it into our front half.
“You know, their mids had a better day,” Longmire concluded.
“We lost 50-50 balls in our defence, too. We gave four free-kick goals away, we got one.
“We just gave away free kicks in situations where we lost the 50-50 contests. Sometimes you’ve just got to do better than that.”
The Swans were missing Jarrad McVeigh, Isaac Heeney, Gary Rohan and Tom Papley - but none are expected back next week when the Swans travel to Melbourne to play the premiers, the Western Bulldogs.
There was, however, a bright spark in Sam Reid, who missed all of last season with injury.
“[Sam] was one of our winners, I guess, particularly early.
“He was able to look really dangerous in our front half and get his hands on the ball and got the score on the board for us.
“He was a real positive to come out of the game, considering how much footy he’s lost.
