Sydney coach John Longmire says the club’s spate of retirements doesn’t necessarily mean they will be overly active in the upcoming AFL trade period.
On Saturday the Swans celebrated the retirement of four of their 2012 premiership-winning team: Jarrad McVeigh and Kieren Jack played in the 45-point win over St Kilda while Heath Grundy and Nick Smith were spectator at the SCG.
The quartet played more 1000 games between them and Longmire would like to fill that void by recruiting some experience to complement the Swans’ extensive crop of emerging youngsters.
“You’ve got things like the salary cap to manage and because we’ve got players exiting it doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to be extremely active,” said Longmire, when quizzed on the trade period strategy.
“You’d like to get a little bit more experience here and there, we’re pretty young this year but it depends on what’s available and what we can afford.”
Longmire will work out a pre-season schedule as Sydney contemplate their first September in a decade without a finals game..
He paid tribute to the toughness of two of players at opposite ends of the experience scale, McVeigh and Tom McCartin.
McVeigh, who returned from a nine-game injury lay-off for his finale, joined former teammate Jude Bolton in joint second place on the Swans all-time games list on 325.
“I’ve never seen a mentally stronger player and so I assumed he’d play even though he hadn’t run much last week at all,” Longmire said.
“We pencilled him in just because we know the sort of person he is. He came out (training) on Thursday and was best on track just about.
“He went absolutely flat out at the risk of getting injured.”
Longmire was also glowing in his assessment of 19-year-old swingman McCartin who overcame a first quarter injury to kick a career-best three goal haul.
“He’s tough Tom, he had a bad corky, there was fears he might have strained his quad and he kept going, he was remarkable.”