Fremantle won’t be underestimating a young Hawthorn line-up who have been playing better than their 1-6 record suggests, according to Senior Coach Justin Longmuir.

Saturday’s clash against Hawthorn will see two of the youngest teams go head to head.

Fremantle had the youngest team in round seven, while Hawthorn had the youngest 22 in round six.

Longmuir said Hawthorn’s efforts in the midfield have been an underrated part of their season and expects them to be a dangerous outfit if they can finish off their good work in front of goal.

Their midfield has kicked into gear since round five, where they have ranked sixth in the AFL for clearances and seventh for contested possessions.

Standing at 198cm, the big-bodied Connor Nash has contributed heavily to this improvement, with 31, 28 and 26 disposals in the past three weeks while blanketing Bulldogs star Marcus Bontempelli in round seven.

“I’ve been really impressed with their contest and pressure and their clearance over the past three or four weeks,” Longmuir said.

“They’ve been really strong in that area, which has led to them being really competitive and made it really clear with our players that they’ve been in a lot of games, especially the last three.

“We need to be at our best.”

Longmuir was upbeat about Fremantle’s ball movement against Brisbane but said their efforts in the contest needed improving.

“Our ball movement and a bit of our dare with ball in hand was strong,” Longmuir said.

“We clearly need to work on our contest work around clearance, that was a big issue on the weekend.

“We conceded 10 goals from clearance (including) eight in the second half and got beaten up around the ball.

“The challenge is on our mids to get better in that area and get us some field position and we need to make sure as a forwardline we support that and as a backline we win contests behind the ball.

“That was a pretty glaring area of the game we need to get right and over the last two weeks we haven’t got that right.”

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