Senior coach Justin Longmuir feels Fremantle are seeing a Blake Acres close to his full potential now the midfielder is at full fitness.
Acres has played six games for Fremantle since arriving at the club as a part of the Bradley Hill trade with St Kilda, that saw Freo net Acres as well as a first and second round draft pick.
After a pre-season hamstring injury put a hold on the start of his Fremantle career, Acres played between rounds six and eight, averaging 12.7 disposals for those three games.
Longmuir felt Acres was far off his best in those games after previously seeing him collect 31 disposals in a Marsh Community Series game against Carlton.
“We saw it through the pre-season with Blake, he had a really good game in the pre-season on the back of a really strong pre-season at the club, but then he did his hammy,” Longmuir said.
“When he came back, he just didn’t look right and he got a calf injury on the back of that.”
Since returning in round 15, Acres led Fremantle against Richmond with 27 disposals, had the second most against Melbourne with 23 disposals and was equal most against North Melbourne with 24 disposals.
As well as winning plenty of the footy, Acres also led Freo with nine marks, six inside 50s and 545 metres gained on the wing.
Longmuir feels Acres and Fremantle are seeing the benefits of putting in that extra work mid-season before bringing the 24-year-old back in.
“Since he’s gone out of the team for four or five weeks, he’s worked really hard on his fitness, really hard on his running, really hard on his contest work and really hard on his role,” Longmuir said.
“In the three weeks since he’s been back in the team have been outstanding. He’s executing his role, but that role is really helping the team perform. Full credit to him.”
