Liam Henry enjoyed a breakout game in Fremantle’s 32-point win against Essendon as he shone on the wing on Saturday at Optus Stadium.
The 21-year-old joined midfielder Caleb Serong with a game high 32 disposals, to better his previous career-best disposal count by 11.
Henry also had career-high marks (eight) and 514 metres gained while having 23 effective disposals.
The game was Henry’s sixth of the season and third since he broke into the team off the back of some impressive form at Peel Thunder.
Luke Jackson praised the efforts of the fellow 2019 draftee, with the pair teammates in WA’s 2019 U18 championship-winning season.
“It’s the small stuff that the team really loves with him, and he’s honestly a really flashy player too,” Jackson said.
“It was a great game from him.
“He looks really free in that wing role, he’s only going to keep building and the sky is the limit for him I reckon.”
Senior coach Justin Longmuir said he had been hoping to see Henry play more consistently at a higher level.
“I think with Liam it has been around consistency,” Longmuir said post game.
“We have all seen his really good efforts and his moments in games are really strong.
“It is about maybe bringing up the bottom end and making it more of a consistent game, being on task for longer and concentrating for long periods of time and not have those lapses in games, which let him down.
“He was really good tonight, he’s been working really hard on his contest. I thought he had some moments in 50/50 balls today.
“He marked and regained control of it and he had some moments where he had to take a ground ball and copped the tackle and pressure and got it going his way for us.
“There was a moment in the last quarter where he got us a stoppage inside forward 50 on a 50/50 ground ball and Switta ended up giving it to Caleb for a goal from that forward 50 stoppage.
“He’s been working really hard on his game, it was good reward for effort tonight.”
Freo finds form against Bombers
Jackson loves his role
Justin Longmuir post-match Q&A
