SYDNEY isn't planning on Lance Franklin playing every game in 2023 and says his output won't be measured on goals alone in what will likely be his final year in the AFL.
Franklin, 36, signed a one-year contract extension late last season to confirm he would go around for a 10th year at the Swans. He has played in all but one of the past 19 seasons having missed the entire 2020 campaign due to injury.
But coach John Longmire has no expectation that Franklin will play every game, with the Swans planning to manage their veteran key forward with rests as needed.
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"His ability on the ground to be able to contribute to the team is important," Longmire said.
"But it's not just going to be measured on goals alone. It never is - we've never done that - but particularly in the towards the absolute back end of his career, it's what his match-ups might be able to allow others to do. All that will come into it.
"It's guys like Logan [McDonald], who will feed off him and the experience that he's got.
"It's just good to have him available and running around this year. I'm sure there's going to be different weeks when he won't play. We'll look at the six-day breaks, we'll look at how he pulls up. It's not just one thing that we'll be looking at, it's his full body, so that'll depend from week to week how he is."
Franklin was on light duties at times over summer due to a calf problem, but Longmire is confident his star forward will be ready to face Gold Coast this weekend.
"We've managed him over the off-season; he had a bit of a calf over Christmas, but he's been able to do a fair bit of training since then," Longmire said.
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"He's come back and played a half to three quarters of the practice games and got in a little bit of touch. He was able to have a really good training session last week, last Thursday was a really solid hit out for him ... hopefully he's pulled up well, gets through this week and is available for this week."
Longmire confirmed Tom Hickey, Robbie Fox and Ryan Clarke would be unavailable for Saturday night's clash against the Suns, but said generally their list is in good shape.
"We feel like we have a good, strong, young core of players that are really important to us, who are carrying a fair load for us, which is how it should be," he said.
Among Sydney's impressive young players is Errol Gulden, who is coming off a solid pre-season and is tipped to build on last year, when he played all 25 games.
"We expect him to be a really good player for us because he prepares so well, he trains so hard," Longmire said.
"He runs so hard - that type of two-way midfielder we really enjoy coaching."
Longmire added he has moved on from their 81-point Grand Final mauling against Geelong and says the club's young players give him confidence they will suffer no repercussions from the MCG loss.
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While teams such as Adelaide (2017), GWS (2019) and the Western Bulldogs (2021) have had varying levels of difficulty in recovering from heavy Grand Final losses in recent years, Longmire does not buy into the trend.
"It's six months ago. We've moved forward as far as what the new season looks like," Longmire said.
"We have a lot of young players who got some experience out of that game, but also out of the year.
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"So we balance it up at the end of the season ... we're really confident, this next group coming forward.
"If we get the majority of our best team on the park the majority of weeks, we think we'll be really competitive."
