Despite winning five of their past six games, senior coach Ross Lyon says that Fremantle is focusing on producing a more consistent performance against Carlton on Sunday at Domain Stadium.
Three of Fremantle’s games have been decided by a goal or less in 2017, with Freo prevailing on all three occasions.
At the MCG on Sunday, Richmond kicked five unanswered goals in the final term to take the lead until David Mundy sealed the two-point win with a goal after the siren.
After leading by as much as 33 points in the third term, Lyon said he was disappointed to see Fremantle let Richmond back into the game.
“None of us are where we want to be at, so we need to keep improving,” Lyon said.
“You saw earlier in the year when individuals were not playing well that, collectively, we can become ordinary quickly and we saw that (against Richmond).
“Even within the wins, we haven’t put together four full quarters of football, so it’s our consistency.
“Clearly, in our Monday to Friday somewhere we need to get a bit more consistent, because how you prepare is how you play.”
Lyon conceded that inconsistency could be a side-effect of playing a young and relatively inexperienced list.
“Maybe it’s reflective of the young group with a number of players under thirty games,” Lyon said.
“We’ve been averaging eight or 10 of those guys so it might be simply that.
“We’d like to not use a birth certificate as an excuse. We’d like to build on our mental toughness and to be able to produce four quarters.”
While Fremantle celebrated the thrilling win after the siren, Lyon said that the group has been hard at work to prevent a similar drop off in performance this weekend against Carlton.
“There’s no high in here, there’s an understanding that the last quarter was very sobering for all involved,” Lyon said.
“There’s no regulation needed, we’re squarely focused on the job at hand.”
“We’d like to think we can be really consistent win or lose.
“Every week’s a grand final, if you don’t treat them like grand finals you don’t get there.”
