ONE OF the biggest dilemmas for premiership-winning AFL coaches and their clubs is to identify the right time to part ways.
Alastair Clarkson and Hawthorn officials butchered their last years together and permanently destroyed relationships in the exit period. Damien Hardwick and Richmond may have got the personal-parting part of the process right, but a Hardwick-driven playing list mess has been left for others to unravel for years to come.
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Collingwood couldn't find a way to keep Mick Malthouse properly stimulated when it opted for Nathan Buckley. Denis Pagan and North Melbourne fell out of love over myriad reasons, as did Mark Williams and Port Adelaide.
Last week, Adam Simpson came to an end at West Coast. As inevitable as that outcome had become, the Eagles mess was allowed to fester way too long and may not yet have reached its low point.
West Coast is now in the market for a new coach, and one of its main targets is club legend Dean Cox. Which will ultimately shine public focus on another premiership coach and his club, with great interest in how the latter years of that relationship will look.
Cox has been an assistant coach at Sydney since 2017, and is currently John Longmire's right-hand operator. The Swans don't have a succession plan in place, nor will they allow themselves to be rushed into one.
That is not to say they don't want Cox to stay as an assistant coach. It is simply that they will back their own well-established and successful business operations over being panicked into reacting to the timeline and agenda of a rival club.
Very few people in football get to live out ideal world scenarios. Cox's is to coach the Sydney Swans. As well as the obvious appeal of the club's now permanent stronghold in Australia's biggest city, his family is extremely well settled there, too.
Sydney is one of the soundest-run football clubs in Australian sport. Off-field, the CEO-chair combo of Tom Harley and Andrew Pridham exudes leadership, and that duo has benefitted from foundations and succession plans laid by others in those roles in Andrew Ireland, Richard Colless, Myles Baron-Hay and Kelvin Templeton.
The Swans have had just two coaches since late 2002, when Paul Roos was appointed, initially in an interim capacity, then officially for the next eight seasons. Longmire, Roos' assistant, was appointed for the 2011 season, after serving an official period as his anointed successor.
Both Roos and Longmire have won and lost Grand Finals: Roos in 2005 and 2006, respectively, while Longmire's premiership came in 2012 and his runner-up years in 2014, 2016 and 2022.
About five months after his most recent Grand Final loss, Longmire, Pridham, Harley and the Swans' board arrived at a fresh arrangement for him to coach until the end of 2025.
After 18 rounds of the 2024 season, Longmire is in charge of a team which is 12 premiership points and a wad of percentage clear of all comers.
He may be in career-best coaching form. Unlike many premiership coaches before him, he does not appear jaded nor burnt out. And he's still "young", at 53. He's certainly been able to relate brilliantly to his young players, with his fostering and instilling of high-end responsibility in Chad Warner, Errol Gulden and Nick Blakey every bit as crucial to yet another Swans premiership tilt as the impact of more seasoned players.
Many club officials and coaches have in the past panicked when a rival club has made a play for one of their own. Clarkson's end at Hawthorn came when Collingwood approached Sam Mitchell. Malthouse's end at Collingwood was after North Melbourne offered its senior job to Nathan Buckley.
Sydney won't panic at West Coast's interest in Cox. After losing its past three Grand Finals, its only immediate focus is on a premiership this year. And Longmire is on the books for another 15 months. It will be his call what happens thereafter. He has fully earned the right to own all aspects of that decision.
