New Sydney coach Dean Cox forces players to watch replay of crushing AFL grand final

New Sydney Swans coach Dean Cox has already made his players sit through a replay of their crushing grand final defeat to the Brisbane Lions.

Cox took over from long-time coach John Longmire at the end of last month, after Longmire shocked the AFL world and decided to walk away from the position in the wake of 60-point belting at the MCG.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Cox has revealed the club isn’t hiding from their abysmal display on the last Saturday of September.

“That was our last performance as a football club,” Cox said.

“So to be able to do that, to stare it in the face, to learn from it ... that’s the only way you can go forward.

“It wasn’t nice to view it but it was nice to be able to move on, to be able to see it and hopefully implement the things we want to do.”

Not only did they watch it, Cox said they “spent all day doing it”.

“I think the way to go forward is to certainly look at it. The players were fantastic through that part. To be open, honest and to review it like we would was important for this football club going forward,” he said.

“Hopefully we can learn from that. It’s behind us now, but you’ve got to take plenty of lessons from it.”

Cox said the review exposed how poorly the team defended in the contest, and revealed that there would be plenty of changes ahead.

One of those changes could be a surprise shift in key defender Tom McCartin’s position, who Cox said had been training with the forwards.

“We’ll change a fair bit of it,” he said.

“I think that’s what all clubs do now and being a new coach, you’ll always have a flavour on the way that you want to play, and we’ll do that as a team. In the next few days, we’ll deliver that to the playing group.

“Yesterday was about the Grand Final. Now going forward is what changes we’re going to make to obviously stimulate, but also to play a little bit of a different brand.”

Given the Swans lack height in defence and a quality intercept mark, the McCartin move is eyebrow raising.

But Cox said it was about flexibility.

“Tommy’s been phenomenal for us down back for periods of his career so far, but he started as a forward as well. One thing we want to try and do is build flexibility in our team,” he said.

“We want to also make sure that he gets a look ahead of the ball at times.

“When he does that, he creates something completely different for a dynamic of our forward line.

“We’ll do that with midfielders, we’ll do that with forwards and some defenders will change places.

“That’ll eventuate over the whole summer. There’s nothing straight that we’re going to do right today, but they’ll get a look at multiple positions.”

Securing Chad Warner’s signature remains high on Cox’s agenda, with the star midfielder coming out of contract at the end of 2025.

The West Australian-born midfielder is already being courted by Perth clubs.

Warner reportedly played golf with West Coast chief executive Don Pyke and offsider Kieren Jack in the off-season, but Eagles legend Cox refused to let his feathers be ruffled.

“We take it at face value,” Cox said.

“He’s certainly known Don and Kieren from his time here. ‘Pykey’ coached here for a long period of time.

“For us ... it’s about trying to create a football club that Chad wants to be a part of, going forward.”

- With AAP