Longmire: It was a beauty

Sydney coach John Longmire has praised his side over how they responded after being on the back foot early in the contest against the ladder leading Demons.

“It was a beauty,” Longmire said.

“Our blokes have been really good this year as far as just keep going at it, keep going at the process. They’ve done it a number of times, they just keep going at it even when things aren’t going their way.

“We kicked 1.5 in that first quarter, they kicked 5.1 which put us on the back foot. The contest itself ebbed and flowed. We thought in the contested situations, we were able to get back on top … and that reflected in the scoreboard.

“I admire the players, and their ability to back themselves in and keep going and keep persisting and they’ve done it a few times.”

Without Lance Franklin, Sydney found an avenue to goal through the likes of Sam Reid and Logan McDonald who each booted 3 majors.

“Sam (Reid) played well as an experienced player in our forward line. Logan (McDonald) was able to do it, we had a bit of an even spread there. Errol kicked a big one in that last quarter … Lance clearly makes a difference to us, but you have to find a way without the good players sometimes and we were able to do that tonight.”

The Swans enter the BYE on a high note, and whilst Longmire admits it’s hard to reflect so soon after a win, he says the victory comes with relief after a gruelling three weeks.

“I’s a really good win. It’s hard to really say 10 minutes after the game has finished because you’re just so relieved.

“It probably just underlines that we’ve got great belief, the players have great belief in themselves to be able to keep going. We haven’t got everything right in the first half of the year, we’ve made some mistakes and we’ve let some games slip, but if they keep going and keep being competitive in games, we can give ourselves a chance.

“We knew going into these last three weeks – with Carlton, Richmond who are red hot and Melbourne – we knew it was going to be a tough challenge, but our players set themselves and were able to do it. We were able to win against the best in form teams in the competition which has been important.

We haven’t done everything right, and we still have some improvement in us. We have a few days off now before we go into another tough clash post-BYE, it doesn’t get any easier.”