Acting captain David Mundy praised Fremantle's ‘resilient’ effort, recording their second one-point win of 2019 by prevailing against Sydney at Optus Stadium on Saturday night.
The midfielder felt Fremantle did well to stick with Sydney early after the Swans dominated the opening term with 15 inside 50s to five, yet Freo trailed by only three points at the first break.
Mundy credited Freo’s defenders for standing up to the Swans early onslaught.
“I thought in particular in the first quarter, we probably weren’t playing as well as we would have liked and we were getting a few things wrong. (The defence) really stood up and halted the tide,” Mundy said.
“It was a great performance. I think we’ve been looking for a bit more consistency and I thought we displayed that tonight. I think it was a good step forward and, hopefully, we can learn the lessons from tonight.”
Mundy said fellow leader Joel Hamling led the way in the backline with Hamling starring with 18 disposals and seven marks, including four contested marks.
“Joel was absolutely huge, he’s been a rock for us, especially since Alex Pearce went down,” Mundy said.
“He’s a lone survivor in the leadership group down there and I think he’s marshalling the troops quite well.”
Mundy said that there were always areas to improve from such a narrow win, with Freo looking towards an all-important clash with the Western Bulldogs next Sunday at Marvel Stadium.
“Obviously we played well tonight and we were really happy with our result but there were a few areas of the game that didn’t go according to plan,” Mundy said.
“We’ll hone into those and try and improve for next week. We’re certainly not a full book yet and Monday to Friday next week, we’ll have a real intensity to improve.”
Mundy said he was thrilled to celebrate a win on his 34th birthday with the Freo fans.
"It was a really nice, like a 30,000-plus person party, it was great.”
