Sydney Swans CEO Tom Harley has publicly praised the amazing guidance of senior coach John Longmire during the ongoing tough times for the AFL industry.

Longmire went viral on Friday night when a pre-match speech that was meant to be delivered at the SCG before the delay of games was delivered to his young daughter in his lounge room.

The video of the speech was uploaded across the Sydney Swans social media channels much to the delight of fans and past players as well.

“We are extremely fortunate at the Swans to have a coach like John,” Harley said.

“He has been with the Swans for over 20 years and he is the longest serving senior coach with over 200 games at the Club.

“He is not just the coach of the team, but he is the coach of the Club.

“Anything he can do to lift the spirits or engage with members, fans or corporate partners he will absolutely do.”

The response from retired champions Michael O’Loughlin and Jude Bolton said it all.

“Pumped. I’m coming out of retirement,” commented O’Loughlin.

“Ready to run through brick walls,” Bolton replied.

It is just one of the many ways that the senior coach plans to communicate and entertain fans during the AFL’s shutdown period.

“One thing the AFL has done well is that given there is no live games they have retrospectively put together a fixture of throwback games,” Harley said.

“It was his pre-match address before the throwback game that we all knew the result of but the response from some of our retired champions was gold on social media.”

“We will be hearing plenty from John in the next couple of weeks as he communicates with our fans.”