Sydney Swans coach John Longmire has blamed his side’s disappointing four-point loss to the Western Bulldogs on Saturday on a terrible third quarter.
 
The Swans led by 16 points when star midfielder Luke Parker kicked his second goal in the second minute of the third term, but the Bulldogs reeled off the next five goals – two of them to Tom Liberatore – to seize the momentum of the match.
 
Bulldogs onballer Marcus Bontempelli ignited his side with 13 disposals in the third term, while Lachie Hunted racked up 12 and Liberatore was enormous around the stoppages.
 
It was a stunning turnaround by the visitors and although Longmire’s men fought back to snatch the lead in the final quarter, they were beaten when Dogs defender Jason Johannisen booted a goal to put his team in front with just two seconds left in the match.
 
Longmire said after the match that his side’s third loss of the year by 10 points or less was hard to take, but they only had themselves to blame.
 
“Challenging is a word for it, but we shouldn’t have got to that point,” he said.
 
“We won three quarters, had more scoring shots, but our third quarter was poor.
 
“They out hunted us in that third term in contested ball, uncontested ball, but also clearances.
 
“We allowed them to kick six of their 13 goals in that term which really cost us, and the other three terms we were pretty solid, but then we didn’t get it right in the end.
 
“We had a group of players who dropped away in that third term, who otherwise had pretty good games, but you need to be consistent over the four quarters.”
 
The Swans were wasteful in front of goal and lacked targets inside 50 apart from Coleman Medal leader Lance Franklin.
 
Franklin took 10 marks and had 21 possessions but couldn’t get his radar working to finish with 5.4 for the night.
 
The star forward proved far too good for Bulldogs’ backman Marcus Adams and threatened to finish off the visitors with two quick goals in the last quarter, but the Swans had few other contributors inside 50.
 
Isaac Heeney (four possessions), Gary Rohan (seven) and Ben McGlynn (nine) were all quiet, with midfielder Luke Parker the only other multiple goalkicker with three.
 
Longmire admitted that his team failed to take advantage of their opportunities; they kicked 2.5 in the first quarter, and 3.4 in the last.
 
“Clearly we didn’t, particularly early when we had the momentum,” he said.
 
“I think we ended up having 24 scoring shots and hit the post four times, so you need to get that right.
 
“Isaac (Heeney) has been ok on the pressure side of the game but hasn’t been hitting the scoreboard, (and) we did a few different things with Gary (Rohan) tonight.
 
“We’ve generally been spreading the goalkickers ok up until this point.
 
“We probably needed a bit better spread tonight but we weren’t as clean as what they were at different times of the game.
 
“They were a bit more efficient and effective, conversion is a key stat.”