After playing in stifling heat against Adelaide last Sunday and travelling to Melbourne with a six-day turnaround, Fremantle will go into the round 4 clash against ladder leaders St Kilda with the belief that the group have prepared and are ready for the test, despite their limited preparation.
"The match against the Saints will be a great challenge for our young group and our young players," Assistant Coach Todd Curley said at the airport on Friday before the team flew out to Melbourne.
"The strength of the Saints has been their contested ball and their tackle pressure. We have to try and match that if we can and we know we need 22 guys to play their role if we're to be a chance but that's probably no different to any game.
"It’s (contested ball) an area we're focussing on with our young group, but it's something we've improved on and we've improved on last week."
Fremantle are coming off a loss to Adelaide at home and St Kilda is buoyant after their 97 point annihilation of the West Coast Eagles but Curley said the results of Round 3 will pay little credence come bouncedown on Saturday.
"We can talk about last week, but it probably doesn't have a great deal of impact on this week. We have to concentrate on our end, get our stuff right."
Curley is adamant that Fremantle’s chances against the Saints comes with Fremantle’s onballers taking advantage of Aaron Sandiland’s dominance in the middle.
"There's no doubt our big ruckman is showing some great leadership. He's going to get the opportunity to give us first use of the footy and hopefully we can capitalise on that.
"He's probably coming to terms that most clubs will go third man up against him and that is physically taxing for him.
"Hopefully he can lead us on the weekend."
Curley conceded that the form of St Kilda’s tall timbers in Justin Koschitzke and Nick Riewoldt, as well as Steven King and Michael Gardiner, is an area that the match committee have also looked closely at.
"The two of them are in great form, (Koschitzke and Riewoldt) they are very high draft picks, they're really quality players and playing good footy. Whoever gets the job will be in for a pretty tough night.
“The guys up the field have a got a fair bit of responsibility to prevent them getting the footy on their terms.
"The great thing is Chris Tarrant has shown he can play back. We have more options in that area than we have in the past.
"But you look at their midfield and guys like Dal Santo and Montagna, they're in good touch too.
"Hopefully our guys can play with confidence and freedom."
Saturday’s game against St Kilda will be Antoni Grover’s 150th AFL/FFC game.
Selected team:
Backs: Roger Hayden 43, Michael Johnson 37, Chris Tarrant 20
Half Backs: Josh Head 42, Antoni Grover 14, Steven Dodd 25
Centre: Rhys Palmer 10, Paul Hasleby 4, Garrick Ibbotson 5
Half Forward: Daniel Gilmore 27, Luke McPharlin 18, Byron Schammer 3
Forwards: Brett Peake 7, Matthew Pavlich 29, Kepler Bradley 26
Rucks: Aaron Sandilands 31, Ryan Crowley 15, David Mundy 16
Interchange: Dean Solomon 6, Stephen Hill 32, Nic Suban 8, Paul Duffield 41
Emergency: Clayton Hinkley 19
IN: Roger Hayden 43, Paul Duffield 41
OUT: Greg Broughton 48 (ankle), Clayton Hinkley 19 (omit)
MILESTONE: Antoni Grover to play his 150th AFL/FFC game
FORECAST: (MELBOURNE)
Fine. Min: 13 Max: 20
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