There’s an unwritten rule in the media team at Fremantle. We’ve collectively agreed that we are not a part of the story, it’s about the players, the club and the fans.

We also realise the importance of keeping fans up to date about what is happening behind the scenes at the club right now. But due to the rapid escalation of the Covid-19 story around the AFL, there’s been no chance to plan ahead and capture this from the players’ points of view. Next week will be different, I hope.

So here’s a wrap of this week from my perspective. This will be my fourth season as Fremantle’s content producer. I’ve been a Freo fan since 1995. My favourite Freo players are Michael Walters and Stephanie Cain. I change my mind on this often. My favourite Fremantle players are now Bailey Banfield and Gabby O’Sullivan.

TUESDAY
Tuesday was my day off from working the games at the weekend. And it was also the players’ day off.

I chose to stay offline as much as I could - trying to forget about Covid-19, forget about how we were waiting on a test result for one of our players, forget about how dangerously low the toilet paper supplies were getting at home.

Instead, I decided to go to the beach. Grab a coffee, read my book, go for a run and put the phone down for a few hours.

Just before I started my run, I got a call from Brett. You might recognise him from the Pre-season Show.

He asked, ‘have you heard the good news?’ I said no. He didn’t believe me.

Anyone who knows me knows how inconceivable it is that I would stay off Twitter for more than 10 minutes.

‘Switta’s been cleared!’ – great. Club shutdown averted. I went for my run and 20 minutes in, I was waved down by another beachgoer. Of all people, it was Sam Switkowski, chilling with Caleb Serong.

I couldn’t help but be grateful for Brett’s call, as I might have kept running otherwise.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one trying to get away from it all. To Freo fans, Sam’s an exciting small forward / tackling machine. To anyone else, he’s the coronavirus guy.

I asked him how his lockdown was.

‘Not great initially, as I didn’t have any internet at home or any data, I couldn’t do anything,” he said.

He added he was thankful to be offline for a few days. While Freo did what they could to keep his test anonymous, his name was released by the eastern states media.

When he got back online, all the messages and news came through – noting that is was weird to see one reporter call his negative test an ‘anticlimax’.

I later noticed that Switta had updated his Insta Story. A smiling selfie-video from the beach with “Ahh the great outdoors” as the caption.

Well played.

WEDNESDAY
Before my time at Freo, Nat Fyfe joked in an interview that he wanted to ask Margot Robbie to the 2015 Brownlow Medal. Our content producer at the time, John Dobson, jumped on the story. And it’s still our biggest story to date on the website.

I’ve always wanted to beat John’s record and had hopes the Switkowski media release might get there. Nope. But it’s our biggest story of the year.

So far…

We found a way to laugh about the situation. A video made its way around the group chat of an eastern states news station using their most ‘recent’ Fremantle training footage in a story. There wasn’t a current Freo player in sight. Instead the likes of Pavlich, Sandilands and Barlow ran around at Fremantle Oval to commentary about a ‘coronavirus scare’ at the club.

And the big stories kept coming. That morning, David Mundy, Alex Pearce and Nathan Wilson all returned to training.

As did Switkowski. While we pretty much left him alone, he was the centre of attention from external media.

He later told me he was exasperated about a photographer who took continually took photos of him as he was running up and back on the boundary - “How many shots does he need?”

He said it was hard to block it all out as he worked through his session.

For one precautionary test, he became the focus of the narrative around a virus he didn’t have.

Fortunately, and very unfortunately, the footy world would quickly move on as the Switkowski story became lost in what was to come.

That evening, we had 'Fight Club', where Kara Antonio runs a handful of staff through a brutal gym session. 'Juddy' is a legend, and there's a reason why she's been our AFLW captain for four years. She knows how to get the most of people, and it's a privileged/awful experience to have her pushing you to the limit. Getting to be a part of that is my favourite part about working at Freo.

THURSDAY
On Thursday, 700 people and one giant elephant in the room attended our 2020 season launch at Optus Stadium.

It was hard to launch a season when there was commentary saying it may not go ahead.

Handshakes were banned and the players were brought in late to minimise any chance they would catch anything.

And the world changed dramatically from when we entered that room to when we left two hours later.

Two big stories broke as CEO Simon Garlick gave his 10-minute address. Tom Hanks had tested positive for coronavirus on the Gold Coast, and the NBA had been suspended.

That afternoon the club made a big call - our football department was going into lockdown and most admin staff were asked to work from home.

As media staff, we were told we had to make a choice by the weekend, move out of admin and downstairs into the football department, or no longer have direct contact with the players.

With the league facing fan lockouts from games, or even a possible suspension, the last thing we could afford was losing contact with our two teams. We knew we needed to do everything to keep that contact alive.

FRIDAY
Peter Bell agreed to let us cover Friday’s training at Optus Stadium, but said they would later tell us the conditions we would need to meet if we were to maintain player contact.

The plan of the day was to keep it fun. We knew Friday would be the toughest day yet for the AFL and we wanted to give the fans something to smile about.

Sonny delivered for us.

Justin Longmuir called for a goalkicking competition on the boundary. And the players seemingly couldn’t miss. But Walters’ celebration took the cake, jumping the fence to applaud his own goal from the stands.

We posted it everywhere.

Meanwhile, the AFL announced that games would be played with no fans in attendance for the foreseeable future.

Back at the office, I met with Belly and our video producer Britt for what will surely go down as the craziest workplace meeting we’ll have in our careers. 

Britt and I had a choice to make. Go into lockdown as a precaution or we would be barred from entering the football department, attending training and games, and we would only get the chance to interview players on the phone.

For me, that meant no more seeing friends, no more gym (or fight club), no more cafes - as a millennial, this hurt the most! A part of me also realised this was quickly becoming reality for many around the world.

Belly was extremely apologetic for putting us in this situation. But, he explained, if either of us got Covid-19, that might lead to the whole club going on lockdown. It would likely lead the postponement of games. These precautions were necessary.

We were in. What other choice did we have? If fans can’t go to games, we needed to make sure we were there to help keep that connection alive.

Later, my boss received a call from Walters. I was called into his office and he put Sonny on speaker. 

It was about the video. It’s getting shared everywhere and the media were portraying it as ‘Sonny practising his no-crowd celebrations’.

“I’m worried this is going to look disrespectful to the fans,” he said. 

It’s hard to convey just how much Sonny cares about Freo and the fans. He said he just did the celebration as a joke and didn’t have the lockouts in mind. He’s worried about how the video would make our fans feel.

We assured him, the fans were hurting for missing games, but he’s given them something to laugh about.

That afternoon I stayed late at the office and moved my computer and work gear downstairs to the football department.

I knew I would not be able to return to my old desk. I knew from our team, I would likely only see the small handful that relocated with me. The rest, I’ll only see via video calls and group chats. It was weird saying goodbye to everyone that day, knowing that I wouldn’t see them for as long as I’m in lockdown. How long would that take? We’re like a family. This sucks.

SATURDAY
My favourite time of the week is Saturday morning. My girlfriend Alex and I usually go to our local cafe, get an iced latte and a toastie and read the paper together.

For the first time in a long time, we didn’t go. I lamented that we were due for a free coffee on our stamp card.

Alex had other plans. She had already bought everything we needed to recreate our cafe experience at home. She’s all in on the lockdown too. My heart burst. Somehow, I knew we would get through this.

SUNDAY
6-0!