AFL
Pearce’s confidence booster as he eyes round one

Fremantle can expect to see star trio Luke Ryan, Adam Cerra and Caleb Serong all back for round one after missing Sunday’s AMMI Community Series game against West Coast.

Ryan and Serong were rested while Cerra missed the game due to calf tightness.

Senior coach Justin Longmuir said that all three can expect to travel to take on Melbourne at the MCG on Saturday 20 March.

After an intense pre-season, Longmuir said he preferred to rest Serong and give more minutes to the likes of Darcy Tucker and Connor Blakely.

“(Serong had) tightness from last week, he just didn’t quite recover in time, got a bit sore,” Longmuir said.

“He’s actually done the most minutes of anyone through the pre-season, done the most match sim.

“We could’ve played him, but we just wanted no risk, we had Tucker and Blakely who could come in for him so we’re pretty confident he’ll be right.”

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Longmuir said he was ‘really confident’ Ryan would play and expected Cerra to have recovered in time from his calf injury.

“We think he (Cerra) will be alright,” Longmuir said.

“It’s a low-grade calf so we think he’ll be there for round one.”

At the start of his fourth season at Fremantle, Longmuir said that untried ruck Lloyd Meek was firming for a debut.

“I thought he performed really well again,” Longmuir said.

“He competed really hard, tried his best to nullify Nic (Naitinui) in the ruck and gave our mids a good honest contest. I think he is firming for round one.”

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