Senior Coach Justin Longmuir and several members of the Fremantle playing group addressed the room at Crown Perth at Fremantle’s Season Launch on Wednesday.
Here’s what everyone had to say.
Nat Fyfe was asked how he’s adjusted to life as a forward and how Freo will balance their tall forwardline in 2023, with the likes of Fyfe, Matt Taberner, Jye Amiss, Josh Treacy and rucks Sean Darcy and Luke Jackson all set to spend time up front.
“Our forward mix will be different to last year and we are trying to work on that flexibility as we play different roles,” Fyfe said.
“Trying to get Jye out of the goal square from time to time has been difficult! We have to find ways to juggle our height, which is a real luxury.
“For me, 14 years I’ve been grinding in the midfield, now I’m realising the glory was in the forward kicking goals! I’m loving it, the challenge of reinventing myself and working with these boys, we’re starting to build that chemistry and it’s exciting.”
Michael Frederick addressed his recovery from a quad injury.
“I’m going well this pre-season but unfortunately I strained my quad the past Tuesday,” Frederick said.
“I’ve been running since then but I’m tracking well and can’t wait until the season starts again.”
From the midfield group, Andrew Brayshaw spoke about new additions Jaeger O’Meara and Luke Jackson.
“Last year we showed our strengths in the middle and I think we’ve bolstered our stocks,” Brayshaw said.
“Luke Jackson is really working really well with Sean Darcy, and Jaeger fits in by taking that David Mundy role and leading us in the middle. That’s very exciting.”
O’Meara said he’d been impressed by the work ethic of his new teammates.
“The main thing I’ve noticed is the hunger in the group,” O’Meara said.
“These guys come in day in and day out and work extremely hard, so it’s no surprise how well Fremantle went last year and hopefully we can take it to another level.”
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Young midfielder Caleb Serong spoke about his recently signed deal until 2027.
“It means a lot to sign on, over the past three years I’ve grown to love this place and I was never going anywhere,” Serong said.
“As a midfielder, I don’t know if you’d rather have anyone else putting the ball down your throat than Luke or Sean and I guess you can see that potential across the whole field. What we can build over the next five years is really exciting and I can’t wait.”
Hayden Young, who has been slated for a breakout season, said he’d been working on improving his strengths.
“I’m always trying to add to all facets of my game,” Young said.
“Something I’ve been working on for a long time is my kicking and building more confidence in that area and hopefully I can bring that strength to the team.”
Brennan Cox was all praise for fellow tall defender Joel Hamling, who is looking to return from a frustrating two years on the sidelines.
“Joel’s flying at the moment,” Cox said.
“He’s probably our most knowledgeable defender we have, so all of the younger boys, myself included, are trying to pick his brain and trying to learn off him as much as we can.
“He played in a Grand Final on Buddy Franklin and he locked him down according to him, so we’re learning as much off him as we can.”
Alex Pearce spoke about his summer playing on Freo’s range of tall forwards.
“I was just talking to Luke McPharlin back stage about the days during training where I’d be playing on Pav (Matthew Pavlich) and he’d play on Tabs (Matt Taberner),” Pearce said.
“I think in Tabs’ first four pre-seasons he would have had two kicks. He’s a lot better these days, he’s given me a couple baths.
“I’ve really loved playing on Jacko (Jackson), he’s going to add a lot to our team with his athleticism.
“Josh Treacy is really putting his name forward for selection as well as Jye Amiss, they’ve had a really good battle this off-season.
“There’s fierce contest for spots so it’s going to be exciting.”
Longmuir was asked about the biggest lesson Fremantle took from their semi-final loss to Collingwood.
“We had to come from behind seven or eight times throughout the year and always left ourselves with a lot of work to do,” Longmuir said.
“One of the big learnings from the semi-final is we don’t want to leave ourselves in that position as much as we did last year.
“There’s been a lot of work around our starts, starting physical and we’ve been using that to drive us at the start of training to make sure we’re really purposeful with everything we do right from the start of our training sessions.
“We want to start a lot faster this year and really put it to the opposition from the very first bounce.”
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