Justin Longmuir has continued to earn praise for his first season in charge at Fremantle, but the senior coach feels he, and by extension his team, have a long way to go before reaching their full potential.
Speaking on radio stations 94.5 and SportFM on Tuesday morning, Longmuir ran through how he assesses his year so far.
“I think I’ve been satisfactory. I’ve got high expectations of the way I coach, so I’m still under no illusions that I’m early in my coaching career and I’ve got a lot to learn,” Longmuir told 94.5.
‘”I think I’ve helped navigate some difficult situations this year. It’s been an extraordinary year, being away from family and friends for so long for two stints.
“We’ve pulled the club together and got it through those times.
“I’m under no illusions that I have a lot to learn as a senior coach and we have a lot to improve on as a team.
“Next pre-season and next season is going to be massive for us.”
The on-field highlight for Fremantle in 2020 has been their defence, despite being hit with numerous injuries, and Longmuir gave the backline his tick of approval.
“It’s been well documented that we’re a defence first team,” Longmuir told SportFM.
“I feel like we’ve embedded our defensive system and our ability to work together, when we get it right we’re really hard to score against.”
Longmuir added that Fremantle need to see improvement with their midfield-forward connection but added he’s seeing good signs after Freo dominated the inside 50 count 46-35 in their 14-point win against Melbourne on Monday.
“I think the next piece of the puzzle is clearly our offence and we saw some glimpse of that last night,” Longmuir said.
“I think we’ve seen some glimpses of our offence in the last four or five weeks, probably since the Collingwood game to be honest, our inside 50s have lifted and we’re starting to get more inside 50.
“The last piece of the puzzle is to be able to capitalise on that, really make the most of it and get more bang for your buck when we’ve got the ball in hand.
“We’ll continue to work on that, educate the players of what we want from our leading patterns.
“It’s going to take a little bit of time and we’re going to have to work really hard on that over the pre-season.”
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