Fremantle's end to the season has Justin Longmuir in 'Coach of the Year' conversations.

Freo will miss finals for a fifth consecutive season, but their consistency and dependable game plan under their new boss has gained fans the longer 2020 has progressed.

In a year COVID-19 has forced team meetings online and removed the opportunity to teach full-ground drills, Freo's new style has them ranked No.5 in the competition for defence.

Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks has spoken about the difficulty in teaching a fresh gameplan under the restrictions, while Essendon has also had trouble two years into implementing the Ben Rutten system.

By comparison, both the Crows and Bombers are ranked in the bottom-four for defence this season.

Ahead of Fremantle's final clash of the year against the Western Bulldogs on Sunday, AFL.com.au looks at how Longmuir and Freo have embedded their new structure. 

Pre-COVID shutdown

After Longmuir was officially appointed on September 29 last year, one of his first objectives was to enhance the teaching methods of his fellow coaches.

"When he first arrived at the club, we had a lot of sessions with the coaches as to how we want to play," Fremantle head of football, and Longmuir's former teammate, Peter Bell told AFL.com.au this week. 

"In essence, we wanted to educate the coaches with their input as well because at that stage they knew more about our players than perhaps what Justin did.

"The framework was definitely Justin's, but it was so they (assistants), in turn, were really clear and consistent with the players."

Fremantle turned to experts to upskill their coaching panel as to the best way to communicate the messages.

"We spend a lot of time talking about individual players and how they best like to learn to maximise that because everyone's profiles are different," Bell said.  

"We've done some things with some teaching experts with our coaches to help them to learn about different teaching styles and learning profiles. It's something Justin was really keen to pursue and continues to be keen on.

"Some players won't learn as well if you're in a lecture theatre and you're seated like an old-school university class.

"I dare say schools these days, there's been a reconfiguration of how classrooms are set-up, for example smaller groups, circular groups and certainly not the old teacher up the front and students up the back.

"That (working with experts) was challenging once COVID came, you couldn't have access to people from outside your football bubble and there's some things that are best done face-to-face.

"If we are able to, and if resources permit, that's something we'll (continue to) explore heavily."

Like most clubs, Freo trained two main sessions a week over summer with a weekly 'craft' session included to allow more individualised training to focus on specific skills for certain positions.

The introduction of the new defensive structure was a priority.

Longmuir also implored the players to own much of the execution, not only in meetings, but in countless 'walk through' drills on their Cockburn training ground.

"He'll ask a lot of questions, he'll expect the players to tell the rest of the playing group, him and the coaches what their understanding of how they want to play is," Bell said.

"It's not a coach up the front talking all the time and 'telling'.

"He expects all the leaders and all the players to educate themselves and each other with how they want to play. In a lot of the meetings, the players are speaking more than the coaches.

"Whether that's helped embed it, I tend to think that is has to (have). That's what he's trying to foster as well."

Captain Nat Fyfe and veteran David Mundy have been crucial in driving the connection between the coaches and players. 

Numbers backing up Darcy's growth

During the shutdown

With players heading to all corners of the country after the narrow round one loss to Essendon, Longmuir didn't want to waste a second of what had been taught over summer. 

"Because he was so eager to educate and embed the way we want to play, the playing group were really engaged during that period," Bell said.

"Through the use of technology and various software programs, Justin would send out gameplan installation stuff and talk to the players individually, in small groups or ask them to go away in small groups and come back to him on certain aspects of our game."

In what turned out to be eight weeks away from the club, Fremantle sense the lessons consumed during the shutdown period are having a big say on the club's end to the season.

The use of software coding program Hudl – used by multiple AFL clubs – allowed the players to observe different scenarios.

"We had a lot of Zoom calls over the break, but all his meetings have been pretty consistent and slowly chipping away at what we want to do," Blake Acres told AFL.com.au.

"He doesn't expect us to wake up tomorrow and be Superman. All he expects from us is to be a little bit better each day."

By comparison, Melbourne opted to do little strategy work during the break.

"We haven't once talked about football strategy or anything like that," forward Tom McDonald told News Corp in May.

"I know a few of the teams have spent a bit of time on that, but our meetings have been all about staying in touch with each other, talking about other things." 

Executing after the shutdown

There's been little doubt Longmuir has been able to coach defensive structures.

In Longmuir's first year at Collingwood as defensive coach in 2018, after crossing from his role at West Coast, the Pies conceded 13 fewer points per game than the previous year.  

Now coaching Fremantle, no team has gone slower with ball in hand in the competition this year. Essentially, Freo are starting to defend while transitioning the ball. 

Fremantle's defence with ball in hand 

 

They have possessed the ball through marks at a far higher rate than last season and looked to the boundary more when exiting their defensive 50.

Even in Longmuir's words, they have played too "safe" at times this season while focusing so much on defence. They have recorded the second fewest inside 50s this season. 

That stat improved against Melbourne in round 16 as they were able to generate 17 scoring shots in the Cairns wet and exploded with 15 goals against North Melbourne in round 17.