Outgoing Sydney coach John Longmire insists his demoralising fourth grand final defeat at the helm didn’t prompt his call to step down. On Tuesday, the Swans announced Longmire would be replaced by his long-time assistant Dean Cox.
The hefty 2024 grand final loss to he Brisbane Lions was Longmire’s 333rd and last game in charge, but the coach had told CEO Tom Harley and chairman Andrew Pridham he had been weighing up his future since before that defeat.
“I didn’t know at that point,” he said. “Sometimes you just need a bit of time to work it out. My last game as a player was a premiership, and I pulled the pin after that. I didn’t know whether that’d be my last game or not. I wasn’t 100% sure.
“All I know was that halfway through the year, and even before that, I was talking to Tom and Andrew about it. I just felt like I needed to stop and rest and reset and regenerate. And it’s very hard to do that when you’re coaching and so I didn’t know at that particular point in time.
“The decision to go forward for this footy club was really important so I needed to make the right call.”
He admitted a grand final win likely wouldn’t have changed his mind.
“I may have made the decision to not coach if we’d had won, and maybe even got to that decision quicker,” he said. “So all I know is I was thinking about that long before then.”
Longmire became emotional and was on the verge of tears multiple times. He will immediately step into another role at the Swans, becoming their executive director of club performance.
The Swans had consistently dismissed speculation regarding a succession plan from Longmire to Cox. But former West Coast ruckman Cox turned down multiple approaches to return to the Eagles as their head coach, in order to remain in Sydney.
“There was nothing in place through that process,” Cox said. “So mine was a family decision, the ability to really enjoy where we are as a family, and with the possibility of hopefully coaching this great club one day.”
Longmire himself was part of a succession plan, taking over from 2005 premiership mentor Paul Roos at the end of 2010, and admitted he’d always wanted to repeat that path.
“I thought, if I’m going to do it, probably now’s the time to do it,” he said. “And I always had a dream of making sure that I’d be able to hand the club over in as good a position as I could possibly do it.”
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Cox, who has signed a four-year deal, began his coaching career as a ruck coach at the Eagles immediately after retiring from a 290-game career that included a premiership in 2006. He remained in the role for three seasons before joining Sydney in 2017 as an assistant to Longmire.
“I understand there’s a huge responsibility, one I’m looking forward to,” Cox said.
A champion player at North Melbourne, Longmire kicked 511 goals in 200 games, winning the Coleman Medal in 1990 and a premiership in 1999.
Longmire, 53, has been in charge of the Swans since 2011 after initially joining as an assistant coach for the 2002 season. He coached them to the 2012 premiership triumph over Hawthorn, as well as to grand final losses in the 2014, 2016, 2022 and 2024 deciders.
With 208 wins, three draws and 122 losses to his name, Longmire earned an exemplary winning percentage of 62.91 per cent, and missed the finals just twice in 14 seasons.
