Sydney Swans raring to go in 2013
By Alison Zell
The 2012 AFL Premiers have issued a warning to the rest of the competition; they’re only going to get better.
Speaking at Lakeside Oval this morning after the Sydney Swans’ last training session of the year, coach John Longmire said his side aren’t resting on their laurels, despite a victorious 2012 season.
“We just need to keep getting better, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve won the Premiership or not,” Longmire said.
“Whether it’s in the gym, or our running program or our skills program, all of our players have been issued the challenge to keep getting better and keep improving.
“We’ve had a solid pre-season to date even thought it’s been a lot shorter than we’re used to, but we’ve been able to still get some work into the players because they’ve come back in pretty good condition.”
Longmire said new recruit Kurt Tippett had already made an impact on the training track, just over a week after joining the club in the pre-season draft.
“He works really hard at his game, you can see that already, and whatever he does he does it at 100 per cent of his capacity and that’s the impressive thing about him so far,” Longmire said.
“He’s still on a reduced training load at the moment, just as he gets his work load up, but the bit of training he’s been doing so far has been fantastic.”
But it’s been the young Swans Premiership stars that have most impressed in pre-season training so far.
“Lewis Jetta, from the day he came back, has been in absolutely fantastic condition, a lot better than he was last year,” Longmire said.
“Luke Parker, Sam Reid, Alex Johnson, Jed Lamb, a few of those younger kids, we were really pleased with the way they turned up the first day of pre-season and I think they’ve led the way and helped push the older blokes which has been really pleasing.
“The older players get really excited by the keenness of the younger boys and to have Lewis Jetta turn up and run a minute quicker than what he did this time last year is a good sign and really encourages the older blokes and helps excite them as well.”
The newest crop of Swans draftees have also enjoyed a successful start in red and white, with ten new faces, including round one pick Dean Towers and rookies Brandon Jack and Xavier Richards, younger brothers of Kieren and Ted, fitting into the squad seamlessly.
“We’re really pleased they’ve been able to do all the training, all of them,” Longmire said.
“Sometimes you get some young kids who come in and have an injury or two and take a little while to mix in with the group.
“But we’ve been fortunate that all the players we’ve got this year have come straight in to our program, picked it up really well and to this point, have really shown some progress.”
The Swans will have a two-week break over Christmas and the New Year, but Longmire isn’t expecting his players to take it easy over the holiday period.
“They’re usually pretty good,” he said.
“They want to make sure they enjoy themselves over the Christmas break and relax a little bit, but more mentally than anything.
“They’ve all got their individual programs and we expect to hit the ground running on the 7th of January.”
