ON THE Tuesday after last year's Grand Final, players and staff from the Sydney Swans gathered at the club's home base for a cathartic, informal chat aimed at clearing the air and moving on.

Barely 72 hours earlier, Sydney's premiership hopes had been obliterated within an instant by a rampant Geelong outfit on Grand Final day. The Swans found themselves six goals down by quarter time and ultimately lost by 81 points.

There was time afforded to wallow, but not much. The club held its club champion dinner, recognising the Bob Skilton Medal winner, just a few days later and farewelled its players for their deserved off-season holidays within the week.

But before they left, John Longmire – one of the most experienced senior coaches in the League, who is set to enter his 13th season in charge of the club – felt it was important to ensure everyone departed feeling confident in their ability to reload in 2023.

"We sat down as a playing group with the staff and asked how we were all going. It was a discussion. It was, 'how are we all going?' There was nothing formal about it," Longmire told AFL.com.au from the club's new Moore Park headquarters last week.

"We touched base, everyone had their chance to have a say in how they were feeling. I didn't want to wait until everyone got back after a 10-week break and that was the first time we saw them.

"We connected and we had a chat. That was it. Then we went into a little bit more of the details, in terms of the numbers and things, when we got back. Initially, it was just a matter of seeing how we were all going."

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Although the Swans were left hurting by their Grand Final performance, the club took heart from its rapid rise to qualify for the game's showpiece event in the first place. Just two seasons before, Sydney had left the 2020 hub with a dismal 5-12 record.

With a young and exciting group driving its improvement, the club is confident it won't let the nightmare of last September linger into its upcoming season and is looking at Geelong as the reigning premier for motivation in how quickly fortunes can change.

"I just think it's a fact of life," Longmire said.

"Whether it's playing sport, whether it's in your personal life, whether it's in your professional life, you have setbacks. It's just part of life.

"You want to build a resilient group. To have those experiences, they're just part of what it is. It's happened, and there are worse things that will happen in life. You have to put it in perspective.

"You want to improve, you want to learn from it in terms of what the experience has taught you. But most importantly, you try and get back there again and have another crack.

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"I feel an obligation to give our players an opportunity to play finals every year. I don't know how deep we go every year, and there will be setbacks, but that's part of professional sport.

"If you look at Geelong, it's a great example. They're a great footy club. They are knocking on the door every year. Astoundingly, sometimes they get criticised for it. I find that extraordinary. They just want their footy club to be competitive every year and they're a great footy club.

"But the year before, they got beaten by Melbourne by 80-odd points in a preliminary final and they were the most experienced team in AFL/VFL history. It happens. You get on with it, you get to work, you enjoy it, you learn, you dust yourself off and you get going again."

A shattered Longmire took the bulk of the responsibility for last year's Grand Final loss, saying after the game: "Personally, you feel like you've let a lot of people down. You let your players down, you let your supporters down, you let your staff down, you let the board down. That's how you feel."

But the 52-year-old spent the summer processing and moving on from the defeat, revealing that an exciting trade and draft period – where the club secured defender Aaron Francis from Essendon and claimed small forward Jacob Konstanty with a first-round pick – helped him get back in the mood for football.

"It takes time. But you talk to any coach in any sport, that's not unusual. It's a common reaction. It takes time. You can't force it, it just takes time to wash through you and you just have to let it," Longmire said.

"You reflect deeply as a coach, but that's whether you win or lose. After any season there is no person harder on where the club sits or how the results go than a senior coach. They always think about it all the time. I'm not by myself there, everyone does it. It just takes time.

"I processed it. But the thing about it is, the game forces you to move on really quickly. You move on to trades, you move on to the draft. Straight after the Grand Final, the biggest story on the Monday are trades. On Monday, everyone focuses on the trade period. My kids are exactly the same. The game forces you to move on and the game forces you to come up with ideas for how to improve.

"That's the space you get into pretty quickly, you're asking what you're going to do to improve. You go from a period of reflection, straight to the practical stuff during the trade and draft period. I really enjoy that.

"You're asking how you're going to get the list better, then what you're going to do in pre-season, so the game forces you to move on."

Sydney returned to pre-season training in style after Christmas, enjoying their first days in the club's new and freshly built training base located in the stylish Royal Hall of Industries building.

Still one of the youngest squads in the League, even despite the 36-year-old Lance Franklin going around for one more season, the Swans have a fire in their belly and are hopeful of going one better this year.

"I'm not so much looking for a reaction to the Grand Final," Longmire said. "I just look for us getting better every day. That's whether we've lost a Grand Final, or the year before where we lost by a point in an elimination final. We just want them to get better.

"I don't want to see anything directly in relation to the Grand Final, it's more about wanting to have a group that wants to strive to get better. That's whether you win a Grand Final, whether you don't make finals, whether you finish last, whether you finish first. We just want to make sure that every day, when we're looking around or in meetings, we're sensing that the playing group wants to get better.

"That's what I sense. We're fortunate that we've got good, strong, quality leaders and a great group of young players who want to get better. Where that leads to, I don't know.

"All I know is that if they want to get better every day, that's a good start."