Fremantle defender Alex Pearce knows the boys will bring key lessons into this weekend’s game against Greater Western Sydney, after Saturday night’s narrow 13-point loss in the RAC derby at Optus Stadium.
Pearce said the game against West Coast was a ‘real battle’ but the boys were happy with the effort to get back in the game and stick it out until the end.
“There were plenty of positives to take out of it…and into next week in Canberra,” Pearce said.
“Bringing that intensity and that sort of work rate, we’ll give ourselves a good chance
“If we can tighten up on a few things…and have a bit more polish in front of goal, we’ll be in every game this season.
Pearce commended the work of the Freo backline after key defender Joel Hamling went down early in the second term with concussion.
“With Joel (Hamling) going down, I thought our back six or seven really stood up after that,” Pearce said.
“There’s a few things that could’ve been done better…we let through a few marks inside 50 which we could’ve stopped
“But it was a real team effort and they’ve got some really big, dangerous forwards, and we worked together well to negate that as much as we could.”
Pearce praised the efforts of veteran David Mundy who stepped up around the middle of the ground in the absence of Nat Fyfe.
The strong performance comes ahead of Mundy’s 300th game in two weeks’ time against the Western Bulldogs in round six.
“He (Mundy) was good, he’s a former captain and he’s been a leader of this club for a long time,” Pearce said.
“We knew he was going to stand up and help carry a lot of the load and he certainly did that, he was sensational.
“The old bull just keeps going, keeps trudging along and he’ll keep doing that for the rest of his career.”
