DEAN Cox was at an off-site meeting with the rest of Sydney's assistant coaches when his phone rang. Swans CEO Tom Harley was keen for a quick chat. "Can you get back to the footy club?"

Cox had an inkling what could be next but wasn't sure. There had been discussions between Cox, Harley, football boss Leon Cameron and coach John Longmire about Cox's aspirations to follow Longmire as Sydney's senior coach, but not in 2025. The agreement had been that Cox would handle the Swans' pre-season program as Longmire took an extended break before giving back the keys to the 2012 premiership coach. 

Cox went back to the Swans' headquarters that November day last year, but not before finishing the planning meeting. 

"We do it every year where you try to pull it apart with what we need to add and do we need to change anything and talk about who is in which line," Cox told AFL.com.au.

"I got back to the club and John said, 'You need to know that, because the gameplan is yours. It's now yours, I'm standing down'."

The epitaph of the Swans' disastrous Grand Final thrashing to Brisbane saw Longmire leave his post after 14 years as Sydney's coach with a year to run on his deal. Cox had long been identified as Longmire's successor, and very quickly shut himself out of West Coast's coaching process last year when the Eagles were replacing Adam Simpson. 

But the 2006 Eagles premiership player was adamant no red and white guarantee was given.

"There was nothing concrete about it. That's one thing people might find a bit weird and the way it unfolded they might think that there was," he said. "We were happy with where we were and an opportunity would hopefully present, but it came a little bit quicker than I thought."

The journey has been a long one though. Cox hadn't thought much about coaching during his magnificent playing career until his own on-field succession plan begun at the Eagles and Nic Naitanui arrived as the club's nominal next big thing. 

"That opened my eyes. I was always thinking about establishing myself, how can we be an amazing team, and then you get a different challenge come in so how was I going to share that role, allow him to grow, play along with him and you play second fiddle," he said.

"That really started the aspirations of coaching. Then once I finished and getting under Adam at West Coast, I was still really raw straight out of playing. I moved to Sydney and thought 'I have to do this if I'm going to pursue my career'. But the coaching love started from helping Nic Nat."

Cox is straight into the furnace. Sydney needs to recover from two Grand Final drubbings in the past three years – first to Geelong in 2022 and then the Lions last year – and it's Cox's job to keep it in contention.

On his first day of the pre-season the Swans spent seven hours reviewing the defeat to Brisbane in sharp detail, with the first minute of the game taking an hour to analyse. He described the first day as "tough" but necessary. "Only time will tell if it was the right way, but we had to do something," he said. 

Cox lost a Grand Final before he won one as a player. He recognises the challenge of making amends for last year's performance on the biggest stage.

"[Is there] scarring? That will be more for the individual to really dive into. That's one thing we want to make sure we provide if there is. I'm happy to help that or to try to get to that as quickly as possible," he said. "One thing about learning from those experiences is, and I've been in football for 25 years, you can't ever say, 'When we get back there we're going to make amends' because it's really tough to do."

The coach change comes in a period of transition for the club, with Cox's appointment seeing the Swans change coach, football boss and list and recruiting manager in the previous year. 

Far from taking over a rebuilding side, Cox instead has a recovering one. He is trying some positional shifts, and some younger faces such as Angus Sheldrick, Corey Warner and Will Green are among the players vying for spots, having only played 31 players last year. 

Having coached the Swans' midfield, the champion Eagles ruckman has worked closely with Chad Warner, Isaac Heeney, Errol Gulden and Callum Mills and they will be central to the Swans' hopes of rebounding in 2025. Heeney had a career-best season last year but the worst day of his campaign against the Lions, a battle many Swans faced.

"That's the balancing act for Isaac and the team. What Isaac did last year was as special as I've seen people do on a football field and to be able to watch it, see him rise to occasions, impact around the ball but also the ability to kick the goals that he did and the timing of those goals, he's a really special talent," he said. 

"The best thing I love about Isaac is he's a competitor and he works really hard. Unfortunately things didn't work out on Grand Final day but we might not have got there if it wasn't for Isaac."

The process of moving on is but one of the myriad of jobs at hand for Cox, who has quickly realised the magnitude of the role. 

"Now everything comes at you and you've got to make decisions," Cox said. "You're accountable for everything and on top of that you realise the magnitude of a football club and how many different areas are reliant on trying to think their part is the most important part of a footy club and differentiating between where things need to be and what's the highest priority."