John Longmire is back in the head coaching hot seat for Sunday night's clash with St Kilda in Albury after sharing the role among his deputies throughout the pre-season.
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The Swans' main man heaped praise on his coaching staff ahead of Sydney's final hit-out before the season opener against Port Adelaide at the SCG in two weeks, saying his elite group of assistants is one of the driving forces behind the club's sustained success.
Forward's coach Brett Kirk, who took the reins against North Melbourne in round one of the pre-season, has just been accepted into an exclusive two-year AFL course that will earn him a level-four qualification.
Senior assistant Stuart Dew completed the same course last season.
"We've got a really diverse, quality group of coaches," Longmire said. "We've had a consistent group here, which has been a real strength and they're very good. I'm pleased to have them.
"Stuey Dew's gone through and done a level four and come out and that was really good for him. Brett Kirk is also doing a level four.
"Henry Playfair's doing an MBA. Josh Francou's an ex-teacher who coached his own club in Adelaide. Rhyce Shaw's doing a fantastic job for our reserves and so is Nick Davis. John Blakey's been very experienced.
"I'm really confident in our coaching team and the players are confident in our coaching team."
Longmire is no stranger to using the pre-season as an opportunity for his assistant coaches to gain experience in the hot seat.
Dew has done it in the past, and Jarrad McVeigh coached a game in last year's pre-season.
"The coaching role now is so much about your coaching team; the head coach is the one that goes to the press conferences, but the reality is it's a coaching team," Longmire said.
"It's always about the coaching team helping the players, there's not a lot of change to what we do, to be honest. Everyone puts their little flavour on it and how they deliver, but the foundation and what we want to do, it's always about the preparation for round one.
"The players and the team's preparation is always the priority out of the pre-season. The bonus, I guess, is to be able to expose some guys to the senior coaching role."
McVeigh will miss Sunday's game after suffering a grade-two calf tear at training, an injury that will likely also cost him at least two rounds of the regular season.
Kieren Jack has also been ruled out of Sunday's game with a persistent hip injury, but Longmire was hopeful the former skipper would be available for the season opener.
"We'd certainly still consider him [despite missing all three pre-season games]," Longmire said. "He played the first intra-club and he's done almost all the preseason, except the last couple of weeks. Hopefully he's on track and next week he starts to build that up and he's right for round one."
