Fremantle are set to start working on a new deal for Justin Longmuir beyond 2022, with the senior coach approaching the third and final year of his contract at the Club.
CEO Simon Garlick praised Longmuir for his development in the role since taking the reins ahead of the 2020 season.
“People forget we started 0-4 last year and that can bring a fair amount of pressure onto a rookie coach but JL handled it really well,” Longmuir told TAB Radio.
“We made progress last year and I think it stepped up again. He’s a contemporary coach, in the sense that he’s technically really strong and he takes a holistic view and approach.
“He develops relationships and trust with the playing group to make sure that in the inevitable times when the hard conversations have to be had, there’s real clarity and it comes from a position of strong relations too.
“JL’s doing a really good job, we’re working on putting a really strong (coaching) team around him.
“He’s two years into a three year contract so we’ve got 12 months to run and we’re going to start initiating discussions around what it might look like beyond that.
“The focus has been primarily on a football perspective. As you can imagine, JL didn’t want any distractions and nor did we as we look to push towards finals but we have an opportunity now to map out what the next 12 months look like as well as the next three to five years as well.”