Justin Longmuir will prioritise development, a balanced game style and empowering his players, with Fremantle's new senior coach opening up on his coaching style when he spoke to the media on Monday.

The 38-year-old has an impressive pedigree as an assistant coach, a career that started in 2010 at Fremantle and saw him take up high-ranking roles at Collingwood and West Coast.

A 139-game player for Fremantle between 1999 and 2007, Longmuir said he was more inclined to empower his players rather than ‘hold their hands’ through their development.

“I want our players to be self-motivated so that they can get the best out of their abilities,” Longmuir said.

“A lot comes with self-motivation, but I want our coaches to guide our players, not hold their hands.

“I want them to be motivated to not only be the best, but to help their teammates achieve the things they want to achieve out of their careers.”

Longmuir highlighted that Fremantle have a young and inexperienced list, but said that he wants the club to always place a priority on development, no matter the demographics.

“To be honest, we’ll always be in a development phase,” Longmuir said.

“We will always be looking as a football club, under me, to evolve and develop - whether that’s the list, the style of play, our skill development – we’ll always be looking to evolve as a footy team.”

A key forward in his playing days at Fremantle, Longmuir helped Collingwood form a miserly defence as their defensive backline coach in 2018 and 2019. 

The Magpies conceded 71.2 points per game in 2019, the second-lowest average in the AFL.

Longmuir said he wanted to find a balance between defence and offence, while prioritising winning the contested ball in the midfield.

“I strongly believe that the game starts at the contest. I want Fremantle to be a really strong contested ball team,” Longmuir said.

“Under my apprenticeship as a coach, I've looked after both areas (offence and defence). One of my philosophies as a coach is that the two complement each other.

“They’re not mutually exclusive, so we’ll be talking a lot about how our offence compliments our defence and vice versa.

"I want to be great at both. I want to defend really well and attack really well. Where we strike that balance, that will show in the future.”

Longmuir said that he was looking forward to working with Fremantle’s current assistant coaching group and didn’t rule out bringing in some fresh faces.

“There’s opportunity to bring in some new assistants,” Longmuir said.

“I’ll sit down with (general manager of football) Peter (Bell) over the next week and have a look at our coaching structure.

"Where I sit at the moment, is that I want to get to know our current coaches and I want to get to understand their strengths and put them in roles that allows them to bring their strengths to the table.”