The likely return of a number of Fremantle’s star players for Sunday’s AAMI Community Series clash with West Coast will lead to some tough calls being made on who makes way, according to Executive General Manager of Football Peter Bell.
Speaking on SEN, Bell said Sean Darcy, David Mundy, Michael Walters and Luke Ryan were all likely to play, while Nat Fyfe also remained a chance to play limited minutes.
There are four Doig Medallists and four All Australians in that group of five, and Bell said their returns would mean some deserving players could miss out on selection.
All five trained with the group on Thursday at Optus Stadium as they prepare for Sunday's clash.
“We’re obviously going to have some difficult conversations with some other players who performed really well last Friday and performed well over the pre-season,” Bell told SEN.
“We’ll manage that as best we can and work out the exact numbers of players we’ll expose in the senior game against West Coast. There will be a number of others who will play a match sim with our alignment team Peel as well.”
Bell said Fremantle left Darcy out of last Friday’s practice match as a precaution.
“Sean just jarred his thumb a couple of weeks ago. He could have played, it’s not an injury that’s going to require surgery. It was a little bit sore but he’ll play this Sunday,” Bell said.
Fremantle are yet to decide on when Nat Fyfe will have his first hitout as he targets a round one return.
“We’ll make a call on whether he plays a half this week (against West Coast) or has a further week of training,” Bell said.
“We don’t have a scheduled match (next weekend) but we are planning to do some match sim that weekend.
“We’ll make a call on that but he’s going really well and just getting that touch back and kicking the footy as much as he possibly can, that’s paramount over the next week or so.”
19-year-old key forward Josh Treacy is likely to play another week in a match sim with Peel to build his minutes after an interrupted pre-season.
“Josh played some game time last week (in a Peel scratch match) and was really imposing. He worked really hard on his body and is still a very young man,” Bell said.
“He kicked three goals in the WAFL match that he played in, so he’ll come into the mix as well. It’s just whether we play him for a small part in the (AAMI Community Series) and manage his minutes or, if we’re able to, give him more minutes back in the WAFL to build his case for round one selection. He’d be very close as well.”
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