Fremantle are ready to ‘get their hands dirty’ going into round one of the 2022 AFL season after one of their strongest pre-seasons to date.
Senior Coach Justin Longmuir said the success of the 2022 pre-season has the team feeling confident heading into Sunday’s season-opener against Adelaide, accompanied by a strong team selection.
“We’re going in really confident,” said Longmuir.
“We’ve had a really strong pre-season and I feel like we have picked a really strong team across the board.
“I feel the players we picked are deserving of their opportunity.”
While Longmuir is focused on Sunday he emphasised the importance of the team seeking consistency throughout the entirety of the 2022 season.
Fremantle will be hoping to improve upon their 11th placed finish on the ladder in 2021, with a record of 10-12.
He also acknowledged the ongoing impacts of Covid-19, and the obstacles still to come throughout the season, however, gave credit to his players for their perseverant approach.
“We put processes in place week-to-week to make us become the consistent team we want to become,” Longmuir said.
“Our players have been really diligent.
“They’ve made changes to the way they go about their lives to try and give us the best opportunity as a squad.”
The 2022 season has also brought in the introduction of new rules on time delays and umpire abuse.
Umpires will now be less lenient with players who deliberately delay play, and a crackdown on AFL umpire abuse will see a range of consequences, including 50-metre penalties.
Longmuir expressed his support of the new rules introduced by the AFL.
“Players have had to adjust, the behaviour stuff and talking back is sometimes a bit of an automatic reaction,” said Longmuir.
“We need to train that out of them, we’ve trained that out of them since day one of pre-season.”
“The other one that’s become a bit of a habit is time-wasting.
“We need to make sure we don’t give any of those advantages to the opposition because they’re just habits.
“We need to get as many umpires as we can into the game and make it as safe as we can for umpires, I’m pretty sure it’ll level out as the season unfolds.”
