Sydney coach John Longmire expects to have stars Lance Franklin and Luke Parker back for the team’s first AFL finals match and has hailed his players’ tenacity despite a costly last-round loss.
The Swans lost by nine points to Hawthorn at the SCG on Saturday in a winner-took-all clash for a top-four place and a finals double chance.
Franklin and Parker were late withdrawals from the team after both failed to get over a groin strains.
Longmire revealed Parker, like Franklin, hurt a groin in the final two minutes of last week’s win over GWS.
“They wouldn’t have lasted the game (on Saturday) that was the feedback,” Longmire said.
Despite their absence, Sydney worked their way to a 24-point second quarter lead, but the Hawks overhauled them by kicking the last three goals.
The defeat snapped a three-match winning streak during which Sydney claimed the scalps of fellow finalists, Collingwood, Melbourne and GWS.
Longmire was upbeat rather than lugubrious after Saturday’s loss, which could drop them to sixth or seventh.
“There’s a lot of positives, we had over 20 more tackles and our intensity and hit was really good,” Longmire said.
“I looked at that forward line, at one stage there wasn’t a bloke over (aged over) 20 and we were having a real crack.
‘I just think it’s a credit to our blokes to be able to give ourselves a real chance to win it because they are a good footy team.
“The last month we’ve been playing against good quality opposition and we aren’t too far off the mark.
‘Our blokes have shown a remarkable ability to be able to get themselves going again.
“We’ll reset and come back in a couple of weeks time and have another crack.”
Sydney have made the finals for nine consecutive seasons, the last eight of them under Longmire.
“It’s not an easy thing to do, you’ve got to improve every year just to make the finals,” he said.
‘I was really pleased that we were in a position tonight, to go for top four.
“We’ve had some real challenges throughout the year, it’s been well documented at other clubs, but we’ve had a few as well.”
Longmire also said midfielder Dan Hannebery had suffered a corked leg.
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