Ross Lyon doesn’t believe there is a right time to face Richmond, with the Fremantle senior coach anticipating a fierce opposition in Sunday’s clash at Optus Stadium.
The Tigers head west following a 47-point loss to the Western Bulldogs and will continue to be without injured stars Alex Rance, Trent Cotchin and Jack Riewoldt.
Richmond have beaten Freo in their past three visits to WA and Lyon said former Tiger Reece Conca highlighted how the Tigers relish their trips interstate.
“Reece has already spoken about how they like to travel and they like to come to Perth. They have a really strong record here and we’re expecting, for want of a better term, them to try and ambush us,” Lyon said.
“They’ve had their backs to the wall, they’ve had injuries. But they have a strong list, strong depth, they went interstate to South Australia (in round four against Port Adelaide) when the world was against them and they won a game convincingly.”
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Lyon highlighted the importance of recovering well from a hard-fought, and low-scoring contest against Adelaide in round seven.
He said Freo stars Nat Fyfe, Bradley Hill and Joel Hamling all sat out of main training on Wednesday with an eye on being fresh for their second session on Friday.
“We’re already preparing, we’ve spoken about how it’s going to be a fierce contest, we’re expecting them to be at their best,” Lyon said.
“We’re looking to get to Optus Stadium to try and improve on the back of last week. It was a tough contest, we were strong in the contest, we defended well and we had entry opportunities.
“We were disappointed, as we’ve been able to score all year but on the weekend we just couldn’t get that done.
“There are some valuable lessons as to why that occured and we need to improve that relatively quickly against (Richmond), I think they’ve won the most games in the past two years, they just had one bad day last year that cost them, so they’re on the hunt.”
Lyon said Freo’s match committee faces a tough decision at the selection table with defender/midfielder Connor Blakely performing well for Peel as he recovers from a hamstring injury.
“Connor’s returned, he had another full game for Peel and he won a lot of possession,” Lyon said.
“We’ll balance Connor’s form and fitness up against the team and its needs and then make a decision.
“We need to consider everyone, Mitch Crowden has been playing really well for Peel and our senior team has been playing well.
“We’ll take it to match committee as it’s very difficult (to discuss openly), you’re sending messages everywhere so it’s very difficult to discuss player positions when I haven’t spoken to the players or made a decision yet, it’s really quite delicate.”
