Justin Longmuir has highlighted centre clearance as a key aspect of why Fremantle weren’t able to get the job done against a desperate Essendon side on Sunday evening.

The midfield has been a strength of Fremantle’s all season, and once again Freo won the overall clearance differential by +3, but it was Essendon’s dominance in the centre of the ground that concerned Longmuir.

“Even though the scoreboard early was in our favour, especially at half time, I didn’t think we were playing the brand of footy we wanted to play,” Longmuir said.

“We were getting smacked in the midfield.

“We left the door open…what was plaguing us in the first half came back to bite us late.”

Essendon won the centre clearances 15-11 with the majority of damage done in the final 20 minutes of the last quarter as they kicked five unanswered goals to clinch victory by one point.

“For the last 20 minutes of that last quarter we couldn’t win a centre bounce, we lost territory and then our backs couldn’t hold up anymore and the damn wall burst,” Longmuir explained.

“When you allow them to win it and you don’t pressure the way we want to pressure, you allow them to get to the outside and they’re a dangerous midfield.

“When they get their hands on it, they’re really efficient in getting it to the outside. We couldn’t win it at the source and couldn’t stop it from getting to the outside.

Longmuir was firm on his belief that the Bombers were tougher in the contest and better at handling Freo’s pressure inside forward 50.

“I thought they were tougher than us, I thought there were times when our ball security could’ve been better, and we let it out. 

“When a team’s got nothing to lose and they’re throwing caution to the wind, it’s hard to stop them getting goal side, it put our backs under pressure, and they weren’t able to hold up.

Some half time structural changes and a lift from Fremantle’s leaders, in particular Caleb Serong who had 13 disposals and three clearances in the third term, helped generate more scoring opportunities for Freo who were extremely accurate, kicking 14.5 for the day.

“We changed structure at half time which we think helped us, but we got to work obviously, some of our leaders started getting their hands dirty which led to more inside 50’s and territory and I think most of the day we were able to cash in on that,” Longmuir said.

“I was more worried about our ability to get our hands on the ball, it felt like we couldn’t get possession of the ball there for a while. 

“I thought they were extremely good at buffering our pressure inside forward 50, I thought they handled that part of the game better than we handled it.”