Sydney Swans coach John Longmire has challenged his side to make a decision on how they want to perform for the remainder of the season.
The Swans are coming off an ‘embarrassing’ 89 point loss to Hawthorn on Saturday night as they prepare to face the in-form West Coast Eagles on Sunday.
Longmire said it was now up to his playing group to determine how they responded to their worst result of the season.
“We have got a decision to make do we want to play really good consistent team football both sides of the ball or don’t we?,” he said.
“At the moment we are picking and choosing when we make those decisions and it has been the case for the majority of the year.
“That is our big challenge, to decide to play that two way football that we have been able to display for a long time and we need to be able to do it and do it quickly.”
Longmire pointed out a number of strong performances this season against Port Adelaide and Hawthorn earlier in the season as the benchmark that his side had to consistently reach.
“We just need to decide whether we want to do it quarter in and quarter out for the entire space of the game,”
“When we have done that this year we have been able to have good strong results and when we haven’t then we have left the result in doubt or to luck.
“We can’t afford to do that in modern footy, you need to make sure you play the sort of football you want to play all the time.”
Longmire said it was both the side’s defensive and attacking capabilities that had lacked consistency and was costing his side important results.
“It is our work rate without the ball and normally when we are playing good strong two way footy our work rate without the ball is of a really strong standard.”
“Both sides of our game was the difference on Saturday night, one team’s ability to go forward and hit the scoreboard compared to the other and that is a combination of defence and attack.
“I am not angry; it is just a reality.
“It is about being able to play good, strong consistent footy both sides of the ball and we normally do that pretty well.”
