Senior coach Ross Lyon might be debuting two Fremantle players in Saturday’s round one clash with Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval but he doesn’t want to stop there. 

On top of debutants Andrew Brayshaw and Bailey Banfield, Lyon says he can see a number of young players pushing up for selection.

Of those, no.5 pick Adam Cerra is one of the most likely inclusions in the coming months according to Lyon.

“We would expect he plays in the first half of the year,” Lyon said. 

“He had a shoulder operation and his rehabilitation (prior to joining Fremantle) was a bit different to what we would have done as he didn’t run for 12 weeks.”

Lyon also highlighted midfielder Tom North and Mitch Crowden, who excelled alongside Cerra for Peel Thunder in a pre-season game against Subiaco last weekend. 

“(Cerra’s) catching up and we’ve got players like Crowden and Tom North, who had 37 last week playing midfield,” Lyon said.

“When you talk to kids in the under 18s they’ll say he (North) was the best player they played with.”

Lyon highlighted that the selection of rookie Bailey Banfield shows that Fremantle aren’t tied to a player’s draft number when judging them for selection.

After being overlooked in the 2016 and 2017 National Drafts, Banfield commented earlier in the week that he was an equivalent of pick 210 by the time he was taken by Fremantle at no.5 in the Rookie Draft.

“I think we’ve bookended the draft haven’t we? Pick two and pick 200 playing so you’ve got to get away from where you’ve drafted,” Lyon said.

“It’s about performance and continuity (of selection).

“I think we’ll just get off the draft picks and look at the whole batch. 

“They’re all going well and we want to expose them all but if you’re an inside mid you’ve got to push (Nat) Fyfe, (Lachie) Neale and (Michael) Walters out of the way, we’re keen to play them all but that’s just not realistic at this point in time.”