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Sydney coach John Longmire is happy to stay under the AFL radar, even though a run of eight straight wins should have the rest of the competition on red alert.
A win clear at the top of the table, the Swans aren’t garnering the kudos of their free-scoring closest challengers Hawthorn, despite winning their past five games by an average of almost ten goals.
With 56 points already in the bag, Sydney’s season will extend into September.
It will be a ninth finals appearance in 10 years and 14th in the past 17.
Longmire isn’t yet deriving satisfaction from steering Sydney into the finals in each of his first two seasons at the helm.
“There’s no satisfaction just at this point, we’ve still got a fair stretch of the season to go,” Longmire told reporters on Monday.
Nor is he fussed about whether his team is getting enough respect from the more fervent AFL territories.
“It doesn’t worry me to be honest, we just go about our business in Sydney and I quite like it that way,” Longmire said.
Longmire isn’t contemplating any radical changes to his attack, despite losing key forward Sam Reid for at least two weeks with a partial tear of a knee medial ligament.
Ruckman Shane Mumford is poised to return after missing last week’s win over Gold Coast with bone bruising of a knee.
“If he’s able to come back in we’re still able to have some height in our forward line, which we think has been really important for us over the last couple of months,” Longmire said.
He wasn’t sure how big a loss Reid would be, but said every club had to cope with injury issues.
“Look at Hawthorn without (Buddy) Franklin on the weekend, and they certainly played well,”Longmire said.
“Collingwood were missing a number of players on the weekend as well and we’ve had our moments this year when we’ve missed key players, so you have to adjust and move on.”
Longmire is anticipating a ferocious contest with a resurgent Carlton at Etihad Stadium next Sunday.
“Carlton have won three of their last four, so their form as been really good,” Longmire said.
“They are obviously desperate to stay in the fight for the eight, so they will be really fierce this week.”
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