Pressure footy for Swans
Swans coach John Longmire says it will take four quarters of pressure footy to get the job done against Hawthorn
Sydney Swans coach John Longmire will be wary of Hawthorn’s scoring power going in to Saturday’s AFL Grand Final against the Hawks at the MCG.
Longmire, who flew down to Melbourne to watch Saturday afternoon’s five-point Preliminary Final thriller between Hawthorn and the Adelaide Crows, said stemming the flow of Hawthorn’s scoring is of vital importance for the Swans this Saturday.
“Hawthorn has got enormous talent, as we knew,” Longmire told reporters at the SCG today.
“(In the Preliminary Final) they had 32 scoring shots in the end and 26 more inside 50s so they’re a quality team and you don’t finish on top of the ladder for no reason at all.
“They are going to take some beating this weekend and we’ve got enormous respect for them as a football team and we’ve had a couple of good challenges against them this year, and I’m sure there will be another one this Saturday.”
While the Hawks finished the regular season as the competition’s highest scoring team, conversely the Swans took the honours with the most stringent defence in the AFL.
Not only did the Swans concede the least points this season, they also led the way in the pressure stakes, laying the most tackles in the competition (1720 for the season).
Longmire said the Swans will need to play to their strengths this weekend, with unrelenting pressure football the way to get on top of the Hawks.
“You have to do a lot of things right (to beat the Hawks),” he said.
“You need to make sure that your pressure is absolutely elite and it’s got to be absolutely elite for four quarters and you can’t have any lapses in concentration and you have to take your chances when you get them.
“Nothing changes in regard to our players having to do their role week-in, week-out, and there is another role to play this week for 22 players that represent the footy club.
“They will have to play to our structures and get our pressure right when the opposition have got the footy.”
The Swans will head into this weekend’s decider with strong form behind them, following an impressive 26-point Preliminary Final win over Collingwood at ANZ Stadium.
The Swans won the contested possession count by 31, and won both the clearances and tackle count over the Pies in the knock-out clash.
Longmire said the pressure football the Swans put on display last Friday night was exactly what he expected from his team again this weekend.
“I thought our four-quarter effort (against Collingwood) was really strong,” Longmire said.
“They kicked a couple of goals just before three-quarter time, but I thought from the first bounce our pressure in terms of keeping the ball in our forward half was pretty good.
“Every player certainly played a really strong role for us on the weekend, which was pleasing.
“Out tackles and everything we really valued was right up there and contested ball as well.”
Meanwhile, the Swans can breathe a sigh of relief with ruckman Shane Mumford cleared of any wrongdoing following contact with Collingwood forward Chris Dawes.
Longmire said he wasn’t surprised no charges had been laid against Mumford.
“We weren’t too concerned about it, but obviously Shane wonders what the attention was about, but it’s obviously cleared up now,” he said.
“We didn’t think he did anything wrong, but when you read the reports in the paper and you’re trying to work out where they’ve come from, you spend a day or so just wondering what was going on but we were really confident.”
Longmire added that Swans defender Ted Richards, who left the ground with an ankle injury early on Friday night before returning in the second quarter, would also be free to play this weekend.
“Teddy is OK, he won’t do a lot tomorrow but he should be fine to train fully on Thursday,” he said.