AFL
Pre-season fixture to be revised

David Mundy is anticipating a more physically demanding season in 2021 with the AFL bringing in a more stringent cap on rotations.

The AFL has cut rotations to 75 from the 90 in 2020 while quarters will return to 20 minutes compared to the shorter 16 minutes last season.

As a result, Mundy expects that players who can play multiple roles will become even more valuable.

“At the moment I’m training full time with the mids and doing my midfield minutes there. I’m really trying to continue to improve and get myself up to scratch in that area,” Mundy told 6PR.

“Hopefully, along the way I’m passing on a bit of knowledge to the young guys coming through.

“I think what we’re going to see moving forward, especially with reduced rotations across the AFL, will be multi-positional players to become the new norm.

“If I manage to sneak into Freo’s best 22, I’ll play midfield minutes but I would be very naïve to think it would only be midfield minutes. Whether that’s a bit of time up forward or out on the wing or at half back, we’re not too sure yet. We’ll play that as it comes about.”

With Fremantle chasing a return to finals for the first time since 2015, Mundy felt that the current list had a determination that exceeded any along the way in his 18 years at Fremantle.

“I think the big difference with the group we have at the moment (compared to) a lot of other groups that I’ve had in my time at Fremantle, is their real strong individual desire to improve,” Mundy said.

“All of the guys we’ve drafted over the past three or four years are of really high character and high football ability and are really self-driven to improve.

“No-one has gone away after last season and thought ‘how great was that, we improved last year it will just happen again’.

“It’s a pre-season cliché and I hate saying it – but everyone has come back in really great nick and really enthused to come back to the group and improve together.

“I have full confidence that no stone will be left unturned from a club perspective (as well as) all the way down to an individual perspective in a bid to take us back up the ladder and playing finals.”