In advance of Fremantle’s first final since 2015, Senior Coach Justin Longmuir turned to Development Coach and three time premiership player Joel Corey to impart his wisdom from playing 23 finals with Geelong throughout his 276 game career.

After beating the Bulldogs in the elimination final, Fremantle now have 27 players with finals experience and they benefitted from the lessons of Corey, who told the players not to build the game up too much in their minds.

“We got Joel Corey to talk to our players, he’s played in a lot of finals and played really well,” Longmuir told 3AW.

“He told the group that the game on the grass is no different, it’s only different when it comes to the external factors of finals.

“We always try and learn from people who have been there and done that and Joel was able to share a couple of good stories with us.”

Longmuir said it was important for the playing group to not get too sucked into the hype and excitement that is building around the Club.

“The interest builds, West Coast are out of finals so all the media interest comes on us,” Longmuir said.

“Lots of people, from supporters and family, want to talk to you about the game and the outcome and it becomes do or die.

“There’s a bit of heightened outcome pressure and sometimes all of those factors take you away from what’s important.”

Longmuir said the group had also spoken about going from a crowd of 60,000 Fremantle supporters to a crowd of 90,000 Collingwood supporters in Saturday night’s semi final.

“We’ve spoken about it but we’re trying not to make too much of a big deal about it,” Longmuir said.

“The way we talk about it is to understand the environment and understand that if they kick a couple in a row, what that means to our communication, our ability to stay on task, remain connected and process orientated.

“It’s putting a plan in place so there are no surprises.

“Clearly, it will be a different environment to what we played in last week, so we’ll make sure our players are ready for that and understand what they’re about to face.

“I think the players will understand the noise, it’s just not going to be on our side.”

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