PAUL Roos will step aside as senior coach of the Sydney Swans at the end of 2010.
The club announced it would take a leaf from Collingwood’s book with coaching co-ordinator and long-time assistant John Longmire to take over the coaching position from 2011.
Longmire has been appointed for a minimum two-year stint as senior coach.
The Swans’ announcement comes just a fortnight after Collingwood announced it was implementing a succession plan in its coaching structure, with Nathan Buckley appointed as an assistant before he takes control in 2012.
Longmire’s promotion not only secures the coaching future at the Swans but also rules him out of the race for North Melbourne’s senior post, where he was considered a leading contender.
Roos said Longmire’s eventual rise to the top job had been discussed for the past two years.
He ruled out coaching at another club and said he intended to remain at the Swans in a football-related role after his tenure as senior coach ended in 2010.
“John is an outstanding candidate for a senior coach and we’ve always talked about hopefully having some sort of succession plan and promoting from within,” Roos said.
“We believe in our culture, we believe in our players and we believe in what they’ve done. We want to keep passing that down to the next senior coach.
“I’m not a career coach. I’ve seen myself as the right person to coach this football club and at the end of next year, I see John as the right person to coach this football club. I certainly can’t see myself coaching anywhere else.”
The Swans’ football manager, Andrew Ireland, said Longmire’s ascension to the senior job had depended entirely on Roos’ plans.
“Obviously the Kangaroos job is there and I guess it’s probably focused us a little bit but to be frank… we’ve talked about it possibly for a couple of years," Ireland said.
“People have asked us whether there was an agreement in place; well, there couldn’t be because it really depended on Paul getting to the stage where he knew that his tenure would finish at a certain date.”
Roos said family reasons had prompted him to make the decision, which was only finalised after a family dinner on Tuesday night.
“[I’ve got] two boys, 15 and 13. At the end of next year, Dylan goes into year 11 and 12 and I think everyone who has got kids understands the demands of that and probably more importantly, when they leave home at the end of year 12, they don’t want to hang out with mum and dad again,” he said.
“There are some things that we really want to do as a family that we haven’t been able to do because of football.”
In a day of change at the Swans, the club also announced Ireland would take over the role of chief executive officer from next season.
Myles Baron-Hay announced earlier this season that he would be stepping down from the CEO role.
