Fremantle held their weekly main training session on Wednesday, with defender Tobe Watson saying the two and a half hour session was built around preparing for their next Marsh Community Series opponent in West Coast on Saturday.
While the session was marred by a hamstring injury to Blake Acres, there were promising signs from midfielder Darcy Tucker and ruck Lloyd Meek, who both took part in the majority of the session as they return from injury.
Meek and fellow ruck Sean Darcy went one-on-one in most of the drills, and were evenly matched in the 20 minute 18 v 18 match simulation that rounded out the session.
Stephen Hill also took part in all drills and played at half back in the match simulation as he builds for a return to football against West Coast.
While Liam Henry did not take part in the match simulation, his presence provided some of the highlights from the earlier drills, with his run and delivery down the wing to Nat Fyfe standing out.
The match simulation saw the team most likely to line up against West Coast go up against a younger Freo lineup.
Darcy led the ruck with a midfield of Nat Fyfe, Andrew Brayshaw and Adam Cerra for the ‘White’ team with Brett Bewley and Cam McCarthy on the wings.
Meek, Darcy Tucker, Caleb Serong and Mitch Crowden were in the engine room for the team in red bibs, with Michael Frederick and Connor Blakely on the outside.
No team clearly dominated the short contest. Cerra was very active throughout while Serong seemed far from overawed against his more experienced opponents.
While McCarthy played mostly forward against Carlton, he impressed on the wing, highlighted by a perfect delivery on the run to Sam Sturt inside 50.
Defenders Luke Ryan and Watson stood out with their intercept marking while Reece Conca had a number of good runs out of half back.
Watson said he took a lot from the session.
“Today was really good, I played on Tabs (Matt Taberner) and a couple of smalls as well,” Watson said.
“It’s good to mix it up every now and then as I don’t want to limit myself to one type of player.
“I like to be versatile and play on as many different types as possible. Playing on those guys is really beneficial I think.”
Watson is a likely selection against West Coast after pulling on the Freo jumper for the first time against Carlton - totalling 13 disposals and five marks.
He said the young defensive group was preparing for a big test against the West Coast forwards.
“They’ve got a really skilful forward line with a few boys that are really quick and they’ve obviously got the talls in Josh Kennedy and Jack Darling.
“We’ll work out a way to combat that and I’m sure we’ll give it our best for this weekend.”
Fremantle take on West Coast on Saturday 7 March at HBF Arena with bounce down at 4.10pm.
