Although the loss brought the club’s NAB Cup campaign to an end, Shaw says there is cause for optimism given the work done in pre-season training and the amount of game time many of the players have had in the past fortnight.
“Forget the scoreboard, our pre-season has gone as planned,” Shaw said.
“To give you an insight into how it works, about four or five weeks ago we picked our four sides for the whole (pre-season) program.
“There’ll be a number of players rested this week – blokes that have had a big pre-season and had two ideal hit-outs of footy.”
Fremantle’s attention now turns to a NAB Challenge match against Hawthorn this Saturday night at Subiaco Oval.
Shaw says there will be changes from the team which ran on to Telstra Dome yesterday.
“There’ll be a major focus on involving the players that haven’t played yet,” he said.
“Now it’s time for the likes of (Chris) Tarrant, (Troy) Cook, (Shane) Parker to come back into the side, and we can also have a look at a couple of guys on our rookie list.”
Shaw was quick to play down the fanfare associated with Tarrant’s first game in Fremantle colours.
“There won’t be too much expectation on him,” he said. “If he gets through the game and has a few kicks it’ll be terrific.”
Bouncedown for Saturday night’s fixture is at 6:40pm. Entry is free for 2007 Fremantle and Hawthorn members who present their membership card. Tickets are also available through Ticketmaster on 1300 135 915, or log on to ticketmaster.com.au.
