Senior Coach Justin Longmuir has made it clear that while there are areas of Fremantle’s game that need improving, he will not be hitting the panic button on the season.
Speaking in his weekly media conference, Longmuir highlighted the importance of supporting the playing group to get them back to playing their best footy.
“There are always open conversations amongst me and the leaders, me and the players, there’s no more than usual, there’s always those conversations going on,” Longmuir said.
“I’m just trying to support the players as much as possible to get them back to playing their best, that’s my job and they’re the conversations that are going on every day and every week.
“A few of our players are getting caught up in thinking that’s not helping them perform and they’re mainly based around outcome, form and scoreboard and that’s taking them away from their role.”
Longmuir admitted that there are areas of Fremantle’s game that aren’t quite clicking, expressing that more members of the team need to execute their roles.
“We just need to get back to executing better, we’re still sixth in the competition for inside 50s, earlier in the season and outside of the weekend we were playing the game in the front half more than any other team in the competition,” Longmuir said.
“Bits and pieces of our game aren’t quite clicking, but we’re not going to throw the baby out with the bath water, we’re not going to panic. We’ll just stick to the course and see if we can get more weight of numbers executing their roles.”
When questioned about potential sweeping selection changes, Longmuir said the team can’t get caught up in the ups and downs of the season.
Both Neil Erasmus and Nathan Wilson were flagged as potential returns to the Fremantle line up after impressing for Peel Thunder in the WAFL.
“We have got to keep a balance…I’m sure there will be changes as there are after losses but we’re not panicking,” Longmuir said.
“He (Erasmus) played well on the weekend and was probably one of our better performers, so he’ll come into consideration.
“He (Wilson) will come into consideration. I liked the way he’s gone back and approached his footy at Peel. Along with Neil, he was one of our better performers last week.”
Longmuir was also hopeful that Nat Fyfe could make his return to football in some capacity next week, with the two-time Brownlow medalist still working his way back from a plantar fascia injury.
When discussing where Fyfe’s role may be best suited, Longmuir expressed the desire to expand his role as a forward.
“It’s always been in our thinking to get him embedded in his forward role, comfortable and confident down there and then expand his role. He’s a good clearance player obviously and that’s always been in our plans,” Longmuir said.
“Clearly, he had a bit of a sore foot in round one when he played his only game for the year, so we haven’t been able to explore that. We’ll put him where he can play to his best.
“It depends heavily on how he gets through the rest of this week and a big training load on Saturday or Sunday, so we’ll cross that bridge probably on Monday if he gets through that and work out a plan of attack to get him a full game of AFL.”
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