Sydney Swans coach John Longmire said the competition’s best teams are able to cope with the loss of key players.

The coach’s comments come after young forward Sam Reid suffered a partial tear of the medial ligament in his right knee in Saturday night’s 72-point win over the Suns.

Longmire said clubs like Hawthorn and Collingwood have already proven this season that good teams have the ability to cope with the loss of players to injury.

“(Reid’s) a loss - but how much of a loss I’m not sure,” Longmire said.

“Every team has got to cope with players at different times that aren’t in their team.

“You look at Hawthorn without (Lance) Franklin on the weekend and they certainly played well, and Collingwood were missing a number of players on the weekend as well.

“Collingwood won by 120 points and they were missing a number of senior players, so I think there are a few teams in reasonable form at the moment.”

Longmire pointed to the Swans’ form earlier this season, which saw the team record wins without key players Adam Goodes and Shane Mumford.

“We’ve had our moments this year when we’re been missing a couple of key players, so you just have to adjust and move on,” he said.

He added that the loss of key players forced others to stand up, and praised the performance of utility Lewis Roberts-Thomson in Saturday’s night’s win over Gold Coast.

“It was good that Lewis Roberts-Thomson bobbed up on the weekend and kicked four,” he said.

“He’s been pretty good in that area and has contested well and was able to kick four goals for us on the weekend and he’s a flexible player that gives us that contest in our forward half, which is important.”

Longmire said Shane Mumford was a possible replacement for Reid in this weekend’s match against Carlton, should he be fit to return after suffering bone bruising in his knee against St Kilda in round 17.

“Reidy is an important part (of the forward line structure) but we’re hopeful that Shane Mumford will come back this week,” he said,

“If he’s able to come back in we’ll still have some height in our forward line, which we think has been really important for us over the last couple of months.

“If Mummy trains throughout the rest of the week and pulls up pretty well then he’ll come straight back into the team.”

The Swans will take on the Blues at Etihad Stadium this Sunday, which will be the first time Sydney has played in Melbourne in seven weeks.

Longmire said the Swans were not concerned about playing in Melbourne, where the team has a 1-2 win/loss record this season. 

“The last time we went to Etihad I thought our first half was as good as we’ve played against Essendon,” he said.

“We’ve lost (in Melbourne) but we’ve lost three games for the year, so I think our form has been pretty solid most of the time.

“In the end I think it’s more about the opposition we play rather than where we play them.”