Hayden Young feels Saturday night’s clash with Essendon is a chance for the playing group to get back to their strengths after a number of ‘letdowns’ against GWS in round 14.
Young said Fremantle were continuing to focus on their slow starts after losing 12 of 13 first quarters this season, but added there were several glaring flaws in Freo’s 70-point loss to GWS.
The leader said he and his teammates usually hang their hats on their team defence and ability to fight back from any situation – two areas that were lacking in their most recent performance.
“Our team D is something we pride ourselves on and our contest work is something that we pride ourselves on,” Young told 96FM.
“Both of those areas were a real letdown, so we've had a good hard look at it. We've got some clear focuses for this week.
“We always feel like we're a really good second half team. We went into halftime (against GWS) knowing that we hadn't performed to the level we wanted to, and we still had a lot of confidence that we’d come out and turn it around.
“After halftime we went from bad to worse, we weren't able to fight back and it was pretty disappointing, to be honest.
“Essendon transition the ball from one end to the other and score - that's something we didn't defend well on the weekend.
“It's a really good opportunity to pick up our mistakes really quickly and put them in place against a team that like to get the ball moving and transition. It's a good challenge.”
Young backed the consistent way Justin Longmuir addresses his players after the Senior Coach received criticism in the media about his calm game day demeanour.
“I think coaches have evolved a little bit,” Young said.
“The funny thing is, when we’re having really good wins and playing well, everyone is celebrating JL's calmness. When you lose it's like, 'oh, he's not aggressive enough’.
“I like the way he coaches, he's very composed, makes really smart decisions. He's a really good thinker.
“He also has a great ability to get messages across to his players because we have good relationships with him. He doesn't need to bark down our necks (for us) to get the message.”
