Fremantle coach Michelle Cowan has declared it’s time for her players to think like professional athletes.
Freo took to the track for their first pre-season session on Tuesday night.
They are considered one of the stronger sides in the AFL Women’s competition due to the depth of talent they could draw from Western Australia, but Cowan is not taking any chances.
"They've been amateur footballers and now they need to be elite footballers," Cowan said.
"They've had a program themselves off-site that they've been doing, and I expect they’ll (have presented) in quite good shape. (Now) we get to work on that and improve over the next eight weeks."
Cowan has coached Melbourne in women's exhibition matches against the Western Bulldogs in the past few years, but said the new competition demanded a greater focus on an elite-level approach to all aspects of training, playing and recovering.
"There's a greater importance on recovery and getting their bodies right and ready to go again, whereas with the exhibition matches, we never really had that," she said.
The Freo Dockers go into their pre-season close to full-strength, with Cowan saying around 24 of the 28 listed players trained on Tuesday night.
"We do have a couple of niggly injuries in the group, but other than that the group is fit and ready to go," Cowan said.
One of those unable to join her teammates was marquee player Kiara Bowers, who has her own rehab program in her recovery from a torn anterior cruciate ligament.
Fremantle was given an extra priority pick to compensate for the loss of Bowers, who will miss the entire inaugural season.
Every player is a West Australian, a fact the Perth-native Cowan – who resigned from her position at Melbourne to take the Fremantle job – is particularly pleased with.
"It's something we're really proud of as a club, that we're 100 per cent WA, even down to the 27th player we picked up.
They've all got an incredible opportunity to prove themselves," she said.
