Fremantle played an intra-club scratch match on Monday night at Victor George Kailis Oval.
Freo’s first game of the season is under three weeks away, taking on GWS at Fremantle Oval on Sunday 31 January.
Senior coach Trent Cooper runs through how the squad fared.
Trent, what did you make of the scratch match?
There was a lot of good play and a lot of good individual performances. But as you’d expect, there are still quite a few things to work on that we want to fine tune before round one and we are really happy to get a lot out of it
Who were the standouts for you from each line?
From the forwards I think Gabby O’Sullivan was the clear pick. Her lead up work, linkage work as well as her pressure made her the standout up front.
From the mids it would be hard to go past Kiara Bowers, she was very impressive. She’s adding another dimension to her game, which we’re working on at the moment, and she did that really well last night. If they were giving out votes, she would have got the three votes.
From the mids, Jasmin Stewart showed she’s really benefited from a big pre-season. She covered a lot of ground last night and got a lot of possessions, so we’re looking forward to her taking that form into round one.
It was an even performance from the backline and Janelle Cuthbertson was probably the standout performer. She had her hands full with Gemma Houghton in the first stanza but after that she really worked her way on top of a couple of her opponents and provided great strength and rebound from back half.
Stephanie Cain played the full game. That would have been the most solid match play she’s had since her knee injury?
Absolutely, Stephanie covered the ground really well. She got into great positions that we expect from her, that’s her strength as a wing. She also worked back to help the back half and provide an outlet as well. We’re really pleased that she got through the full six stanzas in great order.
Draftees Sarah Verrier, Tiah Haynes and Maggie MacLachlan all played, how did they go?
Tiah was solid through the middle last night. Maggie played down back and had her hands full for most of the night and that was a good initiation for her, playing on some really good forwards. Verrier played across half forward and, while she didn’t have a high possession game, she put herself in really good positions. When she had the ball in hand she was elite and set up a couple of goals. We’re really happy with her output.
