As a part of Fremantle’s 2022 AFL Season Launch, Senior Coach Justin Longmuir did a Q&A with members ahead of Freo’s round one clash against Adelaide on Sunday 20 March at Adelaide Oval. 

21-year member Vince Costantino asks: 
This season it has been pleasing to note the general increase in player depth leading to competition for places in the match-day squad. Would you like to see more competition amongst the forwards group?

I think we’ve got healthy competition in the forward line group. We probably still haven’t set on our preferred structure down there, we haven’t locked it away in cement. We could possibly play three talls, Josh Treacy is doing a good job at Peel working on his game and fitness, and we have Sam Sturt as well at Peel at the moment with Joel Western and a few others. Jye Amiss has come back into match sim in the past couple of weeks.
I think we’ve got good competition for spots down there and I think we’re functioning really well as a forward line. We’ve got a lot of players, especially our small forwards, who are really flexible with the roles they can play in the forward line. I think there’s competition for spots down there and no-one’s feeling comfortable with their position and their spot in the team. It’s tracking well. 

Fremantle member Greg Winning asks:
How does the Club develop more consistency in performances? Is it the psychology of a young group who haven't yet had a grasp on the effort required week in week out, or is it something else?

I think it’s mainly the psychology of our group and it’s probably more in the preparation phase. I think we’ve done a lot of education around building consistent routines week to week where our players almost need to check off a checklist of what they do physically and mentally to review and prepare for games. A bit of that is about education and a bit is about trial and error for young players. 
I’ve got no doubt that our most consistent players are consistent week in week out with the way they review and prepare for games. It’s going to take a little bit of time to work through, but I think we’re on the right path and I think a number of our players have impacted in that area. Experience pays for a lot though, we’re just going to have to ride the ups and downs.

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Aaron Liebeck asks:
It already seems that our foot skills have improved this season, has that been a main improvement area you have been looking at over the summer? 

We do a lot of work on our ability to provide good options for the ball carrier and do a lot of work on the sort of shape we want to play in. All those things help execution through better and easier decision making and making the options clearer. We’ve done a lot of work, we feel like we’ve put our players in situations that allows their skill at training to transfer to games and hopefully we see a continued improvement in our skill level. 

22-year member Mike Arnold says:
Hi Justin, it’s no secret that injuries along with inconsistent form have hampered our progress up the ladder in recent years. You mentioned previously that the Club has put in place steps to help to reduce this problem. Could you expand on that please?

There’s not one thing, there’s a lot of different things that play into previous injuries. There’s a lot of stuff we’ve introduced in the gym with our pre-training routines and practices we go through to warm our players up and get them ready for training, through to nutrition and the way we train and the type of running we do. We’ve also tried to train at Fremantle Oval a little bit to give our players a different ground to train at, which is a different surface. It’s never one thing, which is why these things are a little bit tricky, but I feel like the things we’ve put in place around these areas have been of benefit and our players have really embraced all aspects. 

20-year member Peter Diamond asks:
Why not play Sean Darcy and Lloyd Meek together and use our best two emerging ruckmen to give our midfield first use?

It’s about team balance and we play Sean in the ruck for about 80 per cent of the time and we’re looking for someone to come in and fill the 20 percent of game time in the ruck. Their secondary role has to be as a primary forward and we feel like Lobby is that player for us at the moment. Things can change though, we feel like ‘Meeky’ has really improved over the past couple of pre-seasons and he’s really challenging those guys for game time. I’ve been really impressed with the way he’s rucked over the pre-season and he’s narrowed the gap on those two. It adds to our competition for spots, which we have all over the ground at the moment.

Fremantle member David Taylor asks:
I noticed a good method going forward in the two practice games this pre-season. What has been Jaymie Graham’s influence since coming on board?

He’s brought a real team philosophy to our forward line and made it really clear that it’s not about individuals, it’s about us as a forward line working well together and producing good options for the mids and the backs. Hopefully you’ve noticed that some of our forward craft has taken a step forward. I think Michael Frederick is a good example of that, he’s added some forward craft to his speed and it’s resulted in him taking marks inside 50. I think all of our forwards are really working well together and providing really good options for the ball carrier and they’ve really bought into a mentality of being a group of six looking to score rather than six individuals. It’s going to be a work in progress but early signs are good. 

Hayden Lowther, a 24-year member asks:
Hello JL. Where is Sam Sturt at? Is it a case of competition for spots? And further to that, the goal kicking was an issue again in our AAMI Community Series game with West Coast - was it highlighted in the pre-season? 

Sturty has probably been hampered a little bit with his body over the pre-season. He’s missed a little bit of pre-season compared to some of our other forwards through the injuries sustained at the end of last year. He’s back going 100 per cent now. He’s played good footy and full game time at Peel the last couple of weeks and now he’s just competing for a spot in our forward line. I do like his skillset. He brings really good speed and really good aerial abilities to his role. We’ll look to give him an opportunity if his form maintains at the level it is.

As for our goalkicking, it let us down a little bit at the weekend, but I’m not too concerned just yet over it. We’ve done a mountain of work over the pre-season on our routines and our players have been really purposeful with the way we’ve practiced our goalkicking. We’ll try not to get too reactive on an event, which the weekend was. Previous to that we kicked really well in our intraclubs and really well in our first pre-season game. I trust the work we’ve done in that area.

22-year member Rob Cannon asks:
If all key defenders are fit, would Griffin Logue be considered for a defensive mid or tagger role?

Maybe down the track. We’re just trying to get him to become a consistent back at the moment and that’s an area of the ground we need to get some continuity in. Last year there was a bit of a rotating door in our backline, so I think it’s really important, to be a successful team, you have a core group of backs, maybe five or six that play week in week out with each other. We see Griff as an important part to that. He’s got the ability to play tall and small, so we’ll keep persisting with that at the moment. We’ve got good depth in our midfield as well so we see him as a back at this stage. 

21-year member Jude Pearson asks:
Hi JL - can you please tell me how Brandon Walker is tracking?

Tracking really well. He probably missed a period of pre-season before Christmas that others didn’t, hence the reason why he’s come through with the Peel intraclubs. His form’s been really strong and he’s banging the door down. If an opportunity presents, we’ll look to get him in the side. He’s definitely not out of the question for round one. He looks like he’s improved his footy from last year and we’re really excited about what he can produce. 

2-year member Ryan Williams asks:
Hey Justin, I was wondering why Travis Colyer never gets a run in the guts. He has the body for it and the speed. Surely, he would help get the ball out of there. 

I can understand the question. We do play him on the wing quite a bit and we really like what he offers us up on the wing with a lot of different things to be honest, his leadership, his speed and his kicking ability. We’ve probably got other mids ahead of him for the inside stuff but that doesn’t say that we won’t look at it down the track. 

Corey Roe asks:
Hey Justin, I was just wondering if Nat Fyfe will be back for the first round?

At this stage he’s in the frame and pushing hard for round one. He’ll have to probably come through the next couple of weeks without any interruptions to be able to achieve that. We think he can, so we’ll have to wait until round one and selection but he’s tracking in the right direction at this stage. 

9-year member Deb Kavanagh asks:
What do you consider to be the most important skill that a modern player should have?

That’s a really good question! Onfield, I would say the ability to win their own contest. The modern game is such a contest driven game, it doesn’t matter where you play, the contest is important. Whether you’re a tall forward and you’re winning contested marks or being able to follow up at ground level and winning their contested ball at ground level, every role has a contest component to it which is important. I’d say holistically, mental toughness and resilience - you can probably boil that down to the ability to focus on what you can control as a player and focus on what’s important for you to be able to have a really strong growth mindset. There’s so many distractions and pressure on the modern day footballer that can drag you away from that and the players who have the ability to refocus on what’s important and stay really process-oriented tend to improve the most. 

14-year member Damian Del Pizzo asks:      
When choosing the medical sub on game day is it based on the most versatile player or who you think is the 23rd best available player?

I’d say versatility plays a big role in that. Someone who can play midfield, the game is won or lost through the middle of the ground, and it’s a really contested game. So if you can get some fresh energy there through the middle of the ground, that’s a bonus late in games as the midfielders fatigue. For that to happen, you probably need options through the middle of the ground to be able to push players out onto the wing or push some of your mids to other areas of the ground if the injury doesn’t happen in that area. I’d say either flexibility or a midfielder is where we tend to lean. 

2-year member Advaith Suresh asks:
Hey JL, love the way you go about it. In your coaching philosophy how do you strike the correct balance between trusting our processes and adjusting potential weaknesses in our game plan?

Always looking to improve our game plan. We’re always constantly adjusting and shifting our focus to certain areas of improvement or strength. That’s a continuing thing. The big changes happen at the end of the year when you sit down and do a deep dive and reflect and you make bigger changes there. We’re constantly adjusting for what the opposition throws at us, and that’s not necessarily making wholesale changes to your game plan, I’d probably call it adjusting your focuses week in week out to what the opposition brings. It always comes back to what we’re doing, but some of the things we’re doing are adjusted by what the opposition brings. Constantly adjusting and making changes week to week but always trying to have a mindset on our footy and being proactive as well. 

9 year member Sasha Russell asks:
What was your most favourite win since the start of being coach for our amazing Fremantle boys?

There’s probably a couple. I think whenever we were challenged last year, I thought our players showed really good grit and really toughed out probably four or five close games last year, which was really pleasing. I think the St Kilda game a couple of years ago (in 2020) where we came back from a fair deficit, I think it was 40-odd points and won on the road at the end of what was a large away swing. I think we were away from home for our first seven or eight games that year and that was the last game of that hub. I was really proud of the way the players fought back from a pretty big deficit. There’s a number of good wins, as senior coach you tend to hold on to the losses more than the wins but there’s a few there that have made me really proud of our playing group.

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