Ross Lyon has evolved his style of coaching at Fremantle, with the senior coach becoming a father figure to a developing group of players, according to Nat Fyfe. 

The Fremantle captain spoke highly of Lyon in the wake of a resounding 34-point win against ladder leaders Geelong – a victory that came amid a period of media criticism and speculation about Lyon’s coaching future at the club.

“I’ve seen in the past couple of years, Ross evolve into more of a father figure for a lot of the players,” Fyfe told Triple M on Sunday.

“In the last couple of years, given where he’s at with his coaching and where our group is at with the age demographic, he’s transitioned into more of a mentor father figure, and particularly for the younger type players. 

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“I’ve known him for eight years now so our relationship is pretty strong. He’s been so good at shouldering a lot of the heat and criticism that’s coming at the club and the moment and coming at him.

“He’s been protecting the players so they can prepare as best they can for an upcoming AFL fixture which as you know is bloody hard at the best of times, let alone when you’ve lost a couple of key players and you’re not going so well.”

While Fyfe conceded that much of the criticism Fremantle received during a run of five losses in six weeks from rounds 14 to 18 was deserved, he said that a lot of the commentary of Lyon’s coaching was ‘laughable’.

“A lot of the same sort of conversations seem to get rolled out when we are going poorly,” Fyfe said. 

“All of that internally is somewhat laughable when you look at the way we prepare and how they are coaching at the moment.

“As leaders within the organisation, both at playing, coaching level and higher up, we just try and maintain that balance.

“We try and pull our head out of the weeds of the ongoing commentary that’s coming our way and just get guys to focus on our preparation and what we can control.

“It gets difficult at times when you’re losing key players, when a lot of the press conference focus is on Ross and his future, where our club’s going and how the rebuild is going, as opposed to how you are planning to prepare for the upcoming match.

“Full credit to our leadership group who have weathered the storm over the past five or six weeks. I think we were able to get due reward for a lot of effort over the past couple of weeks with a good win on Saturday.”