FREMANTLE coach Mark Harvey was delighted his team sent Shaun McManus off with a win but is now looking forward to seeing how they come up against the Sydney Swans.
Throughout his playing and coaching career, Harvey has seen some of the greats of the game celebrate milestones and farewell games, and knows such games don't always turn out well, but Fremantle's 33-point win over West Coast was the perfect way to send off McManus.
"Because of the emotion of Shaun and the fact that he was one of the players that began at this club and has very much been a big part of the spirit of Fremantle, sometimes the players can go over the top," Harvey said after the match.
"That may have been telling on the whole group in the last quarter, but it's a day the Fremantle Football Club will never forget and more importantly, neither will the McManus family.
"It's very important to send your players off in the right way and we did that today."
While Harvey was pleased to see the group rise to the occasion, he's more interested in how they perform against the Sydney Swans at the SCG on Saturday night.
"It's the art of coaching to read your players and work out how much training to do and to make sure the group doesn’t get ahead of itself because of three wins in a row," he said.
"It doesn’t get any easier as we have the longest road trip next week to play Sydney and we are really going to find out a lot more about the playing group.
"We did the travelling last week and West Coast had a day's break on top of that, so that was against us but I just want to see how the young players handle the next part of expectation."