New Sydney Swans coach Dean Cox has revealed he forced the side to watch their 2024 grand final loss on their first day of pre-season.
The Swans were belted by Brisbane by 60 points, handing Sydney their fourth grand final loss since 2014 and second since 2022.
But Cox, who replaced 2012 premiership coach John Longmire after last year’s heartbreak, said the bandaid had to be ripped off quickly.
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“We just had to watch it (the 2024 grand final),” Cox said on SEN radio on Tuesday.
“On our first day of pre-season, all the senior players were back early December, we pushed the program back a day.
Dean Cox has been an assistant at Sydney since 2017. AFL Photos via Getty Images
“For us, it was about making sure we reviewed it. We sat down and spoke about what happened, we identified it as a playing group and a coaching group what went wrong, what we wanted to focus on going forward and then everything started rolling from there.”
And the exercise was far from easy for the Swans, who also went down to Geelong by 81 points in the 2022 grand final.
“It was a tough day for the players to have to reflect on that game and watch the performance that they did put in,” Cox admitted.
Isaac Heeney of the Swans sits on the MCG turf after their 2024 grand final loss to Brisbane. Getty
“From there, it was about learning from every experience you have. We had a really harsh one on grand final day and we have to learn from it.”
Stunningly, the review took a whopping seven hours.
And even more shockingly, the opening minute of the match took an hour to review.
“We broke up into two different rooms and one thing we wanted to do was watch it from a different perspective and talk through what they were feeling and to call out what was happening,” Cox said.
John Longmire post grand final loss. Getty
“The review took all day. It took seven and a half hours.
“On top of that, the first minute of the game took over an hour to get through that.”
But that loss is firmly in the past now.
“To the players’ credit, they dove right into it and wanted to address it as quickly as possible and learn from it,” he said.
“They wanted to get this done.
“Once the day finished we walked into the next day and we’re set for 2025 now.”
The Swans begin their 2025 season against Hawthorn at the SCG in Opening Round on March 7.