‘Can’t rely on talent’: Ex-coach urges former club to ‘put good players on the market’ after GF disaster

Former Sydney coach Paul Roos has called for his old side to be bold during this off-season and consider trading a star player, as the Swans are left to rue yet another grand final embarrassment.

The Swans were uncompetitive in their ten-goal loss to Brisbane in the 2024 decider and Roos believes the club should consider shaking things up as the club searches for answers.

The legendary coach highlighted two glaring issues facing John Longmire’s side, who finished 2024 as minor premiers.

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“There are two things that stand out for me. One is fixable with the current group which is game plan,” Roos told ABC Sport.

“They have to go back to contested defence. They can’t rely on talent to just win a premiership, not many teams can… the first thing for John Longmire and his coaching staff is to get back to a hard physical defensive team that doesn’t get goals kicked on them regularly in patches, we’ve seen that this year,” he said.

“The second thing is going to be harder, and we had this conversation when I was coaching. We met with the leadership group after the finals series and said ‘guys, we’re going to have to make some changes and for us to get back to where we want to, we need to trade. We need to put people on the market’. The leadership group were fantastic, and they knew it was going to be someone inside that room. They all agreed unanimously. It turned out that Jude (Bolton) had the most interest, but we couldn’t get enough for him to warrant trading him.”

Roos said the current-day Swans should consider having similar discussions now.

“That conversation now has to take place. They have to put good players on the market that change the narrative. Again, we’re talking margins. We’re talking about a great footy club. I’m not getting carried away like some pundits about John Longmire and culture and that sort of stuff. There’s no question that the talent in terms of management, their structure and the football club is there. But it’s two in three years with largely the same group. There are some holes in the organization in terms of game plan and now potentially personnel.

“If John and the coaching staff firmly believe that there’s players in there that can’t perform on the biggest stage, you have to get rid of them. It’s a brutal industry, but that’s just the reality.”

Roos also highlighted how Sydney’s game style had changed in 2024, moving away from the tough defensive style that had become synonymous with the Bloods.

“They’ve dramatically changed their game plan this year. They are no longer a hard, tough defensive team that is hard to score against. They are a team that’s hard to beat because they’re so talented, but they’re not hard to play against,” he said.

“They play a style which suits their home ground, which is further exposed on the MCG. How many times do we look at the screen… very, very rarely there are more Swans players in the frame than Lions players. They didn’t even get numbers to the contest, which I think is the bigger concern.”

Roos went as far as to question the effort of Sydney’s players in the grand final loss.

“I’m probably more concerned about the lack of effort. The lack of effort to get from contest to contest. The number of times a Brisbane Lions player was standing next to or behind a Swans player when Brisbane had the ball was just extraordinary. The lack of Sydney’s ability defensively to stop what they would’ve known was going to be a chip, chip, chip game was rather concerning,” he said.

“That’s lack of effort… there’s effort that the Swans put in and there’s maximum effort that the Lions put in.

“That was my biggest catch cry when I went to the Melbourne Footy Club. ‘I’m not saying you’re not trying and you’re not putting in effort, but you’re not putting in maximum effort.’ The Lions had maximum effort for 120 minutes.”