Sydney coach John Longmire was at his deadpan best.

The Swans had just claimed another significant scalp, a 77-point away walloping of Adelaide on Saturday.

His club has the bye. Their premiership defence is on track: eight wins, a draw and two losses.

And he has Kurt Tippett to come.

Surely, exciting times?

“We have got a long way ahead of us in the second half of the year,” Longmire said.

Nor was Longmire getting too carried away with Tippett finally being able to play for the Swans.

Tippett served the last of his 11-game suspension for his salary cap breaches when his new club smashed his old club at AAMI Stadium on Saturday.

The prospect of the 202cm tall key forward slipping into the Sydney line-up is daunting for opposition teams.

But Longmire simply wants Tippett to play a role, not be the star of the show.

“No matter what player we introduce, we have that certain brand of footy that we like to play and we make sure all the players do it,” Longmire said.

“That will be a good thing in our second half of the year, that we will be able to introduce him into take some marks up forward, which is a really important asset for us.”

Ironically, Tippett will return to AFL action in the city he departed: Sydney’s next game is a return to AAMI Stadium to play Port Adelaide on June 22.

“He has been training for a long time now … we just need to make sure we have the right game time prepared for him,” he said.

“We don’t expect him to set the world on fire because it’s a little bit unrealistic to do that first-up.”