Sydney Swans coach John Longmire says he is confident the Swans leadership group will be able to compensate the loss of co-captain Adam Goodes.
Longmire said this Sunday’s match against North Melbourne will be an opportunity for the team’s leadership group to step up to the challenge in the absence of Goodes, who has been sidelined with a one-week suspension.
“We’re confident we have a good strong group of leaders who can come in and really use this as an opportunity to lead as well,” he said.
“Jarrad McVeigh is an experienced leader now, and we’ve got plenty of blokes in our leadership who can hopefully take some of that load and shoulder it on Sunday.”
The absence of Goodes will also provide the Swans players the chance to step up on field, which Longmire said will be vital to their success over a confident North Melbourne side.
“I’m pretty sure it’s almost impossible to go like-for-like for Adam Goodes and that’s one of the things we’ve got to weigh up,” he said.
“While Adam has been a fantastic player for us and still is, the reality is that we haven’t got him and we need to make sure that the other players who step into that position do so with real quality.
“It’s never a pure offense or pure defence look at the way we view teams, we just look at what their strengths are and what they bring to the table and what our strengths are and try and get that mix right every week.
“We hope that we come with the intensity we need to play on Sunday, because we know if we don’t that North can score really heavily, really quickly.”
Longmire said his team will need to be wary of North Melbourne, who have their tails up after an impressive victory over Geelong last weekend.
“It was as good as they’ve played for a long time,” he said.
“I think we all know and understand that Geelong have been the benchmark team for a long time now so to come out and be in command for three quarters of a game like (North Melbourne) were was a real credit to them.
“You look at (Ryan) Bastinac and (Jack) Ziebell, they kicked four goals each from the midfield so they’re two quality players who have been able to hurt opposition teams on the scoreboard.
“They’ve obviously also got (Daniel) Wells and Boomer (Brent Harvey), who is still in electric form.”
Longmire added that North Melbourne’s handballing game will be a focus for the Swans this week.
“(North’s handballing game) can work anywhere; it just depends upon the type of pressure the opposition put on.
“(North) were able to work under the pressure that Geelong put on, so they’re more than capable of putting it on under pressure and are very effective at that type of game plan.
“They didn’t handball as much in round one as what they’ve done in the last two weeks, but certainly to play that game style against Geelong, considering how good Geelong are, means they are doing it really effectively.”
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