John Longmire has stood down as Sydney’s senior coach and is set to be replaced by assistant Dean Cox.
Five senior Swans sources confirmed that Longmire has stepped down ahead of a major club announcement on Tuesday afternoon. Two sources confirmed Cox was slated to be the replacement.
The Swans declined to comment amid speculation, put to them by this masthead, that Longmire had quit as coach. Longmire and his manager Liam Pickering were also contacted for comment.
Swans coach John Longmire.Credit: AFL Photos
The Swans have called a press conference for a “major club announcement” at 1.30pm.
A source familiar with Longmire’s thinking said the premiership coach felt he had got the most he could out of the playing group and it was time for a fresh voice to help take the players forward.
Longmire was not in the Swans’ room on draft night, and a source said he was not present for the first day of pre-season training for the full list on Monday. While a plan had been in place for Cox and Ben Matthews to run pre-season this year, club people were still surprised not to see the head coach there for the first day.
One of the most respected and highly regarded coaches in football, the 53-year-old coached the Swans to a premiership in 2012 before suffering grand final losses in 2014, 2016, 2022 and 2024. He was contracted for the upcoming season.
People close to Longmire have said he had contemplated walking away from the game in recent years to live on his farm.
The Swans have a history of succession planning for their new coaches. Longmire took over from Paul Roos under such a plan.
Cox has been part of Sydney’s coaching structure since 2017, and most recently has overseen game strategy and performance and has been more heavily involved in list management decisions this off-season.
The 42-year-old had been a target of West Coast in their hunt for a senior coach, before the Eagles appointed Andrew McQualter, but Cox opted not to pursue the job.
Though the Swans have repeatedly denied he is part of a contracted succession plan with Longmire, the six-time All-Australian ruckman has been seen as Longmire’s logical successor.
Longmire has been a vocal critic of the AFL’s soft spending cap for football departments, arguing that coaches and staff were being stretched to the limit.
“I think the real challenge for the industry is there’s a lot of really good people working but they’re working enormous hours and putting themselves and their families, in some cases, under some stress,” he said in 2021.
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