Star tall defenders Alex Pearce and Joel Hamling could both make their long-awaited returns to football in round one after progressing beyond the expectations of senior coach Justin Longmuir.
 
At Thursday’s season launch at Crown Perth, Longmuir said that the pair were more likely than not to play in round one against Melbourne.
 
“It looks that way (that they’ll play) hopefully, they get through training on Saturday but they’re both progressing really well,” Longmuir said. 
 
“In some aspects, they’ve progressed faster than we thought they would. Not only are they fit and playing longer minutes, they’re performing really well.
 
“I feel Joel Hamling on the weekend (against West Coast), his intercept marking and defensive skills were outstanding and Pearcy’s taken a massive step forward in the last fortnight."

While Fremantle have a bounty of options in defence, their forward stocks have been stretched after five forwards in Michael Walters, Rory Lobb, Mitch Crowden, Bailey Banfield and Michael Frederick picked up injuries in the AAMI Community Series clash against West Coast.
 
After Freo’s backline weathered an injury crisis in 2020 and came out stronger for it, Longmuir said he was confident he will see the same with Freo’s forwards.
 
“I’ve said many times that the beauty of last year was we were able to build great depth in our list,” Longmuir said.
 
“That depth is going to get tested in round one and we feel like we’ve got a lot of players this pre-season who’ve really earned their spot and were unlucky to miss out last week against West Coast.
 
“They’ll be itching to get some good game time and put their hand up. Our round one team, they will have earnt it, they’ll all be in good form and we’ll be expecting a win.”

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