Senior coach Justin Longmuir is confident Fremantle can improve their scoring in 2021 after finishing last season with the third-lowest scoring average in the AFL.
Fremantle’s defence was the fifth-best over the 2020 home and away season and Longmuir hopes he can bring Freo’s attack into line with some ‘easy fixes’.
Fremantle averaged 51 points per game with 16-minute quarters in 2020, the equivalent to 64 points per game for a full-length game.
With quarters returning to 20 minutes in 2021, Longmuir told Melbourne radio station 3AW that he expects Fremantle’s scoring to naturally increase, however he also wants to see further improvement to his team’s scoring average.
“The game time is going to go back up next year. I think if we can add five goals to that, that would be a good stepping-stone. There’s no ceilings on it, but it is hard to go from 50 points to 100,” Longmuir told 3AW.
“I feel like there’s some real easy gains to be made with the connection between our mids and our forwards, which sometimes was lacking last year.
“I think the way our forwards provide options, we can really improve and I think there’s some really easy wins there.”
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Freo is set to have key talls Matt Taberner and Rory Lobb spearhead the forward line and Longmuir expects star players Nat Fyfe and Michael Walters to also be significant contributors.
“I’m keen to trial just the two (key) forwards and get some rotations through the midfield,” Longmuir said.
“Fyfe has some real ability forward of centre with his ability to read the play, attract a good defender and really free up space for the others.
“Walters will spend a bit more time forward, as he did towards the second half of last year. I thought his last four games of the year were really good down forward. We’ve got some options down there.”
Longmuir expects the big improvement to come via Fremantle’s small forwards.
“We’ve got a real good bunch of small forwards coming back like Sam Switkowski, who didn’t play at all last year, and Sam Sturt didn’t play much last year,” Longmuir said.
“They’ve got some real speed. Not only can they use that on offence but that defensive speed to chase down and put pressure on the defenders will be a real attribute.”
