Can Swans rebound from grand final humiliation to make AFL history?

As Sydney looks to create modern history in 2023, selective memory across the Swans’ collective is critical to their ability to contend for this season’s AFL premiership.

Among the truisms in football is a trend Sydney must reverse after their humiliating 81-point loss to Geelong in last year’s grand final to claim their first flag since 2012.

Teams thrashed in deciders have wallowed, rather than rebounded, the following season since the VFL became a national competition with the inclusion of Brisbane and West Coast.

Port Adelaide Power were defused after their 119-point defeat to Geelong in 2007 and did not reach the finals again until 2013.

The GWS Giants marched to a maiden grand final appearance in 2019 in tune with their Big Big Sound but have scarcely made a noise since being plucked by Richmond by 89 points.

Dismantled by Melbourne by 74 points in Perth in 2021, the Western Bulldogs lost their bite last year when failing to make the eight. It is a dispiriting history for Swans fans.

But in the immediate aftermath of the 2022 grand final, Sydney coach John Longmire recognised the need to frame a mindset that would enable his team to look to the future.

It had been a disastrous day, from the bungled selection of an unfit Sam Reid to the scrambled decision-making. The Swans, Longmire acknowledged, “just buggered it up”.

But in the same press conference the veteran coach delivered a template for how Sydney are seeking to turn history on its head this season after the fifth-heaviest loss in a grand final.

Sydney would consider 2022 as a whole, rather than just the final four quarters, and in doing so realise that they had taken another significant step in their development.

Longmire highlighted this again this week