"YOU'VE got to risk this feeling to take the chance to do something great."
Those words may have been from Chris Scott, but they apply to all coaches who lose matches in September.
The hurt from defeat in September can be immense. For Scott, it came after a 25-point lead in a preliminary final became a 10-point loss, to eventual premier Brisbane.
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The sentiment behind those words would be shared by Adam Kingsley. For the GWS coach, the hurt may even be starker, and possibly darker. His Giants lost two finals this year from near-unloseable positions of dominance. Failing to secure victory after a 28-point lead against Sydney in a double-chance final was bad enough. Losing to Brisbane the following week after holding a 44-point lead was embarrassing. Then add a one-point loss in a preliminary final in 2023 to the Giants' mix, and it's a catastrophe.
A club and a coach gets only so many chances at risking the feeling to do something great. John Longmire risked it all in year two of his control of the Sydney Swans and won the 2012 premiership. He risked it all again to reach Grand Finals in 2014, 2016, 2022 and then one more time last Saturday, against Brisbane.
Unfortunately, there has been nothing great attached to three of those past four Swans Grand Finals. Working backwards, the Swans lost those matches by 60, 81, 22 and 63 points.
Longmire and the Swans now find themselves mired in complex hurt. Virtually every achievement pre-Grand Final in 2024 has been ruled null and void. The psychological toll is immense on the coach and the club, and the packaged-up events of the 2022 and 2024 Grand Finals must be forensically investigated before jobs are formally assigned for 2025.
Swans chairman Andrew Pridham and CEO Tom Harley must commission a big-business-style review into all operations. Brutal questions must be asked about, and by, each person in a position of power in the football department. The senior players need to be part of this, too, for there is irrefutable proof now that something is very wrong with this club's ability to deal with the physical and mental stresses which will always be at play on the last Saturdays of September.
Isaac Heeney has now had three poor Grand Finals, and Tom Papley, Nick Blakey and Errol Gulden two. That Robbie Fox was the only Swan to show genuine resistance in both the 2022 and 2024 deciders would be a good starting point for that review.
Nothing should be spared in the Swans' analysis, including the messaging of internationally renowned mindfulness expert Emma Murray.
At risk of sounding too old-school, I would encourage Pridham and Harley to adopt a modernised version of the old-fashioned 360 feedback sessions.
Let's not forget that some of the problems which were clearly evidenced last Saturday were due to a lack of leadership. It certainly didn't help that the captain Callum Mills somehow badly damaged a shoulder in a Mad Monday-style moment about this time last year, and then could never get a proper crack at full match fitness. Mills missed the GF with a hamstring problem.
Only after the Swans have completed their forensic probe into operations can they commit to a leadership structure for 2025 and beyond.
Longmire may be contracted for next year. And Dean Cox may be considered the senior coach-in-waiting. But neither scenario should be treated as a given.
Losing the 1989, 1992 and 1994 Grand Finals at Geelong was too much for Malcolm Blight, who quit, before heading to Adelaide where he won the 1997 and 1998 flags.
Longmire, too, may need to consider removing himself from the Swans. He would almost certainly find another senior job for the 2026 season.
Individuals and clubs only get a finite number of opportunities to risk the feeling to do something great. As brilliant as it has been on many occasions for Longmire and the Swans in the past 14 years, the combined footy trauma of Grand Final day 2022 and 2024 may be something from which that pairing may not recover.
