Senior coach Ross Lyon has dismissed theories Fremantle is worried its round 15 loss to Hawthorn could re-occur in Friday’s Preliminary Final.
Lyon said Fremantle’s 72-point loss to Hawthorn at Aurora Stadium did not mean anything come bounce down at Domain Stadium on Friday night.
“When the ball is bounced we all start as equal,” he said.
“I hear all the permutations, I hear all the theoretical models, I hear about expectations and past performance.
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“All that’s going to matter when the ball is bounced is who puts their head over the ball and runs really hard and uses the ball well, that’s as complex as I make it.”
Lyon said Hawthorn were the competition benchmark for a number of years.
“If you want to be the best you have to beat the best,” he said.
”We’ve got a significant challenge in front of us but we know our best is good enough and it’s where we want to be.
“There’s no hiding, you don’t sneak your way into prelims, you don’t sneak your way into grand finals, you need to play quality and they’re all tight and tough.”
The Hawks controlled the football during the last encounter, finishing with 427 disposals to Freo’s 308.
“When you get to a prelim all teams are difficult,” Lyon said.
“They come over as formidable opposition, in form, available, they’ve got the (Jack) Gunston issue but we won’t worry about that as they won’t be worrying about Ryan Crowley potentially being picked.
Despite Friday’s Preliminary Final being at Fremantle’s home ground, Lyon said he did not believe the ground would be the biggest factor
“There’s goalposts either end, the umpires make decisions, hopefully we end up on the right side of the ledger but I don’t buy into it, it’s nothing I can control,” he said.
“We’re playing at Domain, they’ve played there, we love playing in front of our own fans, there’ll be plenty of energy for us.”
