There’s something particularly special about the 2024 grand final being contested between the last two runners-up, with coaches at the helm who are desperate for the vindication that success brings.
For both John Longmire and Chris Fagan, this match is legacy-defining, one way or another.
In 2024, the Swans were clear for much of the season, but perhaps in the final third, more questions arose than answers provided. Sure, they were the minor premiers, but the early-season dominance faded to the point of Sydney being perceived as outsiders more often than not.
At times they’ve looked complacent as the season has gone on, they’ve also felt a little tactically inflexible. Callum Mills’ absence continues to be big, even though he missed most of the wins this season. We know they’re undersized a bit defensively and while the skipper isn’t tall, he positions himself as intelligently as the rest of Sydney’s defenders. He was always their wildcard this year.
Longmire’s always had pretty decent control of things at the Swans, one would suppose that comes with being in charge of one club for 14 years and counting.
The 53-year-old is already established as a Sydney legend. He’s the most tenured coach of the club by far, he has coached the most finals by a long stretch and is one of the most successful leaders the club has ever had.
The Swans have always run a professional organisation, stability is the baseline of the club – they’ve only had three coaches since the turn of the century, all legendary figures within the game.
Perception counts for a lot in our game, perhaps too much, and for every bit of deserved adulation Longmire receives and for as settled as his legacy is within the Swans’ camp, the 2024 grand final is massive for him.
Heading into this season, the Swans had played finals in 11 of Longmire’s 13 seasons and only in the other two seasons had they finished with a losing record. Despite this, they entered 2024 with a losing finals record under Longmire.
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With this Saturday’s game, the Swans’ coach moves past Leigh Matthews into 11th place for all-time finals coached, but his winning percentage is only better than Jock McHale, who astonishingly coached in 58 finals and won seven flags, and Chris Scott, who has a couple of flags next to his name.
Before this upcoming game, he has coached in four grand finals and won one, a record matched by former South Melbourne coach Jack Bisset. Ross Lyon is zero from four, one being a grand final replay – the history books have an asterisk next to his name for that, but it sort of shields Longmire.
Should the Swans lose this weekend, Longmire will be the only coach to have led his team to five grand finals and not won multiple flags. It shouldn’t matter because it’s an outstanding accomplishment to be in the mix so many times, but history tends to be a numbers game as time goes on and legacy relies on it.
When the Swans were annihilated in the 2022 grand final, they lost to a team so utterly dominant that season that it was hard to take much from that disappointment.
Longmire hasn’t really changed much in terms of Sydney’s style of play over the last few years, but rather, the club has tried to add personnel that suit the way they want to approach the game.
Sure, they’re a little less reliant on winning the contested ball and lean a little more into taking the game on with running when appropriate. They’re averaging more marks than they did a couple of seasons ago and retain possession a bit better. All of these small shifts are pretty negligible on competition-wide statistics, but they’ve shifted Sydney’s identity a little.
Really though, they are amongst the best teams in transitioning out of the back half and scoring off the turnover just as they were two seasons ago. The main change has been structural, rather than forward 50 pressure creating turnovers.
By and large though, with subtle variations in how to get there, Longmire has his team playing as they always have in recent times and it’s got them to a second grand final in three years and their fifth under his tutelage.
For the Lions, 2024 had a terrible start, an enormous winning streak that seemed all-conquering, then returning to the mean. They’ve been pretty leaky defensively all year, but Fagan deserves credit for mid-match tweaks that have helped improve the team on the run.
There were issues last season too throughout the year, largely created from a level of inflexibility that appeared to be detrimental to their overall approach, but as we know, the Lions were a kick away from winning the flag last year.
They’ve been worse defensively this season once their defensive 50 has been penetrated, particularly this finals series where their second-half resurgence against Geelong and GWS masked first halves that would’ve made the worst teams in the league shudder.
That’s why, for as critical as we may have been of Fagan throughout our coverage over the last two years, having been the biggest supporters of Brisbane’s resurgence since 2018, we have to embrace the variability and flexibility that he has adopted in key moments that has put the Lions in a great spot.
Perhaps that’s the best trait a coach can have in these games, where really, the numbers don’t matter as much; the analytics sort of become a passenger to the tactical chess game between the coaches and what cards they have left up their sleeves.
Fagan’s has shown more this finals series, but Longmire’s got options. It’s fascinating.
And on the Lions’ coach, Fagan and his club have largely been embraced by the neutral as their preferred team to win, having fallen so agonisingly short against everyone’s favourite enemy last season.
It’s been a while though, hasn’t it?
This marks six consecutive years of playing finals. They’ve had a double chance on four occasions, the same number of times they’ve had a home final to kick things off.
The Lions have been arguably the biggest attacking threat for each of the last four seasons and in some people’s estimations, have had the best key defender in the league guarding them.
Brisbane’s story isn’t one of this weekend’s success being the culmination of an eventual rise to the top in Fagan’s eighth season in charge – it’ll be sweet, sweet success should they win, but they’ve been here for longer than most other clubs, all of whom would be put under the microscope with some of the finals performances they’ve dished up.
Now, there’s no disputing Fagan is a good coach and the argument against it is pretty silly, in much the same way Port fans criticising Ken Hinkley is too, who has clearly continued to get the most out of a list that isn’t up to it.
Of course, Brisbane’s list is quite the opposite to Port’s and instead, it’s the expectation that Fagan must fight because that’s what has driven the Lions to be treated as such a high-level contender year-on-year.
Fagan has a list that has obviously been up to winning a flag for a long time now and to be completely honest, they probably should’ve done so by this point.
It’s what makes this Saturday so important for his own legacy and probably, what will most define Fagan’s time in charge of Brisbane.
If they win, it’ll have been a well-deserved victory and again, while not necessarily the culmination of years of development, there’ll certainly be an undertone of “finally” to it.
Yet, if it’s another loss for the Lions, in back-to-back GFs no less, it’d mark six years of contention in the upper echelon of the competition, six whole seasons under Fagan as arguably the most potent offensive unit, with no ultimate success to show for it. A loss this season completely shifts the narrative on the Lions next season and not in a good way.
It’s why this weekend’s big dance, between two clubs travelling to the MCG, both of whom will have an abundance of club and neutral support from Victorian fans frothing at the notion of this “interstate” contest, is so big.
We know we’ll be entertained, we know that these teams are capable of playing fast, frenetic and fun footy on a perfect spring day and we know both coaches will give it their all.
But the added layer of narrative that could define the legacies of John Longmire and Chris Fagan, for better or for worse, is just another fascination that we’ll be monitoring closely on Saturday.
Longmire and Fagan have done a wonderful job at their respective clubs but having lost the last couple of grand finals, neither can afford to be the coach that loses twice in quick succession.
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