MILESTONE NIGHT IN SYDNEY

Thursday night at the SCG will be the centre stage for not just a critically important game in the scheme of the season, but two significant coaching milestones.

John Longmire, by far and away the longest-serving coach of South Melbourne/Sydney, will take charge for the 300th time, while Luke Beveridge will coach the Western Bulldogs for the 200th time.

Longmire, who has a winning percentage of 61.2 per cent, has become so synonymous with Sydney that his 200-game playing career for North Melbourne, which included the 1990 Coleman Medal and a premiership in 1999, often gets overlooked.

After joining the Swans as an assistant coach under Paul Roos in 2002, Longmire was part of a talented coaching group that included Ross Lyon and delivered a flag in 2005, the club’s first for 72 years.

As his lengthy coaching apprenticeship came to an end, Roos announced a long handover period, Longmire took charge in 2011 and by the end of 2012 had led the club to its fifth premiership.

There were other Grand Final appearances in 2014, 2016 and 2022 and only two seasons in which the club has missed the eight.

Only Chris Scott has coached the same club for as long among active coaches, and like the Geelong coach, Longmire not only has firm command of his own club, but is respected throughout the game.

Longmire is a quiet but forceful advocate for the northern clubs especially – he chooses his counsel wisely, but the game listens when he speaks up.

His latest remarks about the introduction of a send-off rule is a case in point.

He has his work cut out for him in 2023.

The Swans are mired in 15th place, two games out of the eight. They just about have to win every game from here to make the finals.

He is contracted until 2025, the same as Beveridge, who holds exalted status at the Bulldogs after guiding the club to the 2016 premiership, the first in 62 years and just their second overall.

He was a 118-game player for Melbourne, the Bulldogs and St Kilda and enjoyed a distinguished coaching career in the Victorian amateur competition, where he led St BedesMentone to three successive flags.

He worked under Mick Malthouse at Collingwood and Alastair Clarkson at Hawthorn, helping both those clubs win premierships.

Beveridge is one of the quirkier but more passionate coaches in the AFL and is fiercely protective of the club and his players.

He is also a brilliant strategist who has reshaped the Bulldogs a couple of times since the 2016 flag and they might have been one goal away from establishing an impregnable lead in the third term of the 2021 Grand Final before Melbourne tore the game apart.

Only the great Ted Whitten has coached the Bulldogs in more games, but Beveridge is on track to move past him towards the end of next season.