John Longmire

Early years

Longmire began his playing career at the Corowa-Rutherglen club in New South Wales, where he won the Ovens & Murray Football League’s leading goalkicker title. His ability and size quickly attracted the interest of the North Melbourne VFL club's talent scouts.

AFL career

Longmire’s physique and size earned him the nickname Horse. He began for North Melbourne in 1988 against Footscray with a four-goal performance from full-forward, but struggled after that and near the end of the season coach John Kennedy Sr. moved him to full-back. He did well in that role during 1989 – holding Tony Lockett to five kicks in Round 14 – but North’s lack of key position players in attack saw him moved back to the forward line in August.

1990 saw Longmire jump to the top of the tree: at only nineteen years of age he kicked 98 goals and won the Coleman Medal as the league’s leading goal kicker. In Round 2 of that year he kicked a North Melbourne record of twelve goals against Richmond, which he broke twelve weeks later when he kicked fourteen goals in round 14 against Melbourne. Going into the final round Longmire looked likely to reach the 100-goal milestone for the season, however terribly inaccurate kicking against a hard Collingwood defence resulted in a tally of two goals and eight behinds, leaving him just two goals short. Longmire went on the win North Melbourne’s best and fairest that year and led the club’s goal kicking list each season from 1990 to 1994.

At North Melbourne, he formed a powerful goalkicking partnership with centre half forward Wayne Carey. In six seasons between 1990 and 1995 Carey and Longmire collectively kicked 768 goals (of which Longmire contributed 464) and thirteen times they combined for ten goals or more in a game. Individually, Longmire kicked 5-plus goals in a game 36 times, 7-plus goals 18 times and 10-plus twice, before a serious knee injury forced Longmire out of the game for the 1996 season. When he returned the following year, he played out the remainder of his career in defence and in the ruck.

Longmire missed out on playing on the winning side of the 1996 premiership with a knee injury and just made it back from an elbow injury to make his last career game the 1999 Grand Final, in which the Kangaroos defeated Carlton.This was his only year to also not score a goal, managing only to kick 1 point in 10 games.

Sydney Swans

Longmire returned to New South Wales to take up an assistant coaching position with the Sydney Swans. In 2006, he was considered to be a front-runner for the St Kilda Football Club coaching role, which was made vacant by the sacking of Grant Thomas, however, the role later went to then-fellow Swans assistant coach Ross Lyon. In 2008 the coach, Paul Roos, appointed Longmire the Swans' "coaching co-ordinator". Longmire replaced Roos following his retirement at the end of the 2010 season.

Longmire's first game as the Sydney Swans coach ended in a draw against Melbourne, with both teams scoring 11.18 (84). His first win as coach came the next week, against Essendon in Round 2. Longmire had a relatively good start to his coaching career, with only five losses in the first fourteen rounds of the season (albeit against top-four opposition in Geelong, Carlton (twice), Hawthorn and Collingwood).

One of his best coaching achievements was engineering Sydney's upset 13-point victory over Geelong at Skilled Stadium in the penultimate round of the 2011 season. The Swans had not won there in more than 12 years and the home team had not lost at the ground in exactly four years and one day. Also, the Swans were the only team to beat top-four side West Coast at Patersons Stadium during the season. Those two sides won the rest of their home matches during the regular season.

Longmire took Sydney to the finals in 2011, his first year as senior coach in what was the club's 13th finals appearance in 16 seasons. After beating St Kilda in the elimination finals at Etihad Stadium, the Swans were defeated by Hawthorn in the semi-finals ending what was otherwise a promising first season for Longmire in the top job.

In 2012, his second year as coach, Longmire led Sydney to third place on the AFL ladder, compiling an impressive 16–6 record over the home-and-away season. He later coached the team to a 14.7 (91) to 11.15 (81) victory over Hawthorn in the 2012 AFL Grand Final. Subsequently, his contract was extended until the end of the 2015 season.

In March 2014, Longmire signed a two-year contract extension that takes his tenure to at least the end of the 2017 AFL season.

John Longmire is convinced his youthful team doesn't suffer from a lack of experience, but admits the winless Swans need to get going quickly.

Coaching statistics

Playing honours

Team

Individual

Coaching honours

Team

Individual