Ross Lyon says Fremantle’s review of the 2014 season has identified two major positives.

The Freo senior coach has always had a ‘three phases of the game’ philosophy, and the club was at the top end of the AFL ladder in two of those phases.

“We were the number one contested ball team on differential in the AFL, which is a healthy stat,” Lyon said.

“Defence, we were number two.”

Only Grand Finalists Sydney conceded fewer points in 2014.

Lyon said there would still need to be improvement in the third phase – offence.

Freo averaged 92 points a game in 2014, the same as it did in 2013.

However, the AFL average went from 92 points a game in 2013 to 86 this season.

On that basis, there was improvement, but Lyon said the club needed to find more to compete with the best sides.

“We averaged 92 or 93 points, the top four averaged 97,” he said.

“Scoring did come back a bit this year, but Hawthorn were the outlier in that.”

The premiership winning Hawks averaged a whopping 111.7 points a game –two goals a game better than the next best, which was Port Adelaide.

It wasn’t just the playing group’s performance that was intensely analysed post season.

Lyon said the coaching team also recognised it needed to get better.

“I wasn’t pleased with my match day performance on the whole against Port Adelaide (in the Semi-Final) with some momentum shifts,” Lyon said.

“You still think about those things, things you could have done.”

The Freo coach said players and coaches would continue to work with leadership development company Leading Teams, which has been working with the club since Lyon’s arrival for the 2012 season.

“We’ve identified that our culture is really strong, our on-field leadership is really strong and the way we go about it in our work ethic as a playing group and our coaching panel (is strong),” Lyon said.

“But we know you’re only as strong as the next group coming through, so our first and second year players will have more work put into them in regards to leadership and culture and development.

“Also, the people that influence our players, which is myself and the assistant coaches and development coaches, will spend more time with Leading Teams up-skilling ourselves so that we can impart onto our playing group.”