JOHN Longmire played 200 games with North Melbourne, winning the Coleman Medal in 1990 and the 1999 premiership. He joined the Sydney Swans as an assistant coach in 2002 and is now the club’s coaching co-ordinator.
Who’s the best tactician you’ve come across in your time in football?
In my time at North Melbourne, Norm Dare was very good at looking outside the square a little bit at the game of football. Sometimes you used to scratch your head a little bit but a lot of the things he came up with were beneficial. As a player, you didn’t get to see a lot of it but he was certainly good while I was at North.
Here at the Swans, it’s been a combination of a few people over the journey, but obviously Rossy Lyon, who’s now at St Kilda, brought a lot of football knowledge to the club as an experienced assistant coach of 10 years.
How much influence do those tactical moves on game day have on the result?
Various people say that a result comes down to 80 per cent of what you do during the week and 20 per cent on match day; some people say it is weighted more the other way. I couldn’t tell you which way the percentage lies but I do know that you’ve got to get both areas right.
When you get down to the wire in different games, at times a good move can make a difference but it still doesn’t get you away from doing the basics well all the time. If you do the basics well over and over again, as an ex-coach used to say to me, chances are you’ll win a game of footy and he was always right.
As a line coach (midfield, defence, forward), how much influence do you have on making moves on game day?
I guess all the coaches operate differently. Whether it’s Roosy in the box or myself in the box, our line coaches do have a fair say in each of their areas of the ground, simply because that’s their role.
We’re fortunate that we’ve got good people in those roles. We trust that they know what they’re doing – they’ve done the work during the week, they’ve studied the opposition, they know their individual Swans players the best and therefore they should be across their area. They have a large say in what happens on match day in their particular areas.
However, every move goes through the senior coach. No matter whether Roosy’s in the box or on the boundary line, everything goes through him. He’s always the one with the final say but he’s very good at making sure everyone has input and is able to contribute.
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The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
