JOHN Longmire has taken the reins as senior coach at the Sydney Swans following the retirement of Paul Roos.

Since the Swans season ended with the semi-final loss to the Bulldogs, Longmire, a former North Melbourne champion forward, has been hard at work putting the building blocks in place for season 2011.

In the second of a two part series on sydneyswans.com.au, Longmire looks back on the season just gone, and predicts who will poll well at tonight’s Club Champion event.


What were some of your highlights from the 2010 season?
 There were certainly a few. The fact that the players we picked up during the trade and pre-season draft periods all made a significant contribution was one of the highlights. That four of our five draftees were able to play senior football was also very exciting, particularly after losing eight premiership players the year before.
 
It is rare to see so many young and first year players get their chance at senior level. Why was that the case this year?
 At the end of the day, they deserved their spot. Dan Hannebery played seven games last year while living in Melbourne, he had an interrupted pre-season but once he got going he was terrific.

Lewis Jetta is a more mature age player who has played against men in the WAFL, so he wasn’t like a young 18 year old kid coming into the system, and Trent Dennis-Lane was similar.

Gary Rohan was probably the one that really jumped up. It was terrific to see him step up to senior level, and for him to play nine games in the end was a good result, considering he’d come from the TAC Cup.
 
Why is it that players recruited from other clubs, such as Ben McGlynn, Josh Kennedy, Shane Mumford and Mark Seaby, can come to the Swans and make such a positive impact?
 First of all we identify them as filling a particular role for us. If there is a role that we need filled in our team, we target those players and speak to them about it. I also think our playing group is very good at integrating other players, whether they be draftees or from other clubs. I think the Sydney lifestyle suits players too. It’s a very good lifestyle up here in Sydney, particularly for players coming from areas like Melbourne where footy can really saturate you.
 
How did you rate the years of the new players?
 We thought Joey Kennedy had a really good, consistent year and just got better as the year went on. He had an interrupted pre-season with a hip injury but once he got going he was very consistent and his finals series was particularly impressive. He was opposed to players like Matthew Pavlich and Chris Judd and some of the really elite midfielders in the competition and did a really good job on them. We knew Kirky, as an inside midfielder, was coming to the end of his career, so it was important to try and get players in that could fill that role.
 
Benny McGlynn was just super and just what we wanted in regard to genuine speed and absolute hardness. He missed a long period of matches with his quad injury, and again with his cheekbone, but the games he played were just fantastic.
 
Shane Mumford was a player we thought could be really good for us. He and Mark Seaby were terrific for us early on, but when Mark went down in round six, it gave Mummy the chance to spend more time in the ruck and he was just super. He gave us an extra midfielder at times because of his follow up around the stoppages. He is very athletic and I think there is still a lot of improvement in him.
 
Did any of those new recruits surprise you with their form this year?
 We certainly looked at all of them as being good players and had no doubt that they could play a role in our team. Having said that, the impact all of those guys had was significant and they were all very good players for us. It’s unfortunate because Seabs was a very good player for us too before he was injured, and so too was Daniel Bradshaw.
 
While the fundamentals remained the same, did the injection of some speed change the way the team played this year?
There’s no doubt that the injection of certain types of players change the way you play - even without changing the fundamentals of the game plan. Every player brings to the table their strengths, and if one of those strengths is speed, then you can really utilise those strengths without making major changes to the game plan. There’s no doubt that the injection of speed from the likes of Lewis Jetta and Ben McGlynn, along with others, helped us with a bit more run right across the ground.

With Club Champion on tonight, who are some of the players you expect to poll well?
 There are really a number of players in contention. Goodesy’s best games have still been terrific. He had a few quiet ones but his best was still outstanding.  Kieren Jack’s back half of the year was very good and he took his game to another level. Heath Grundy, after having a really good second half of the year last year, had an extremely consistent year, playing on some of the best players in the competition. Jarrad McVeigh had a quiet patch in the middle of the year but his season overall was very consistent too.  Then there are the guys we have spoken about like Mummy and Josh Kennedy who have both had great seasons.