Star midfielder Andrew Brayshaw says Fremantle are hungry to put a disappointing week behind them as they look ahead to their first home game of the season on Sunday against GWS at Optus Stadium.
Brayshaw said the players were excited to play in front of what is likely to be their biggest crowd since 2019.
Tickets for Freo v GWS are on sale from Tuesday 23 March
“The boys will be hanging out to get a home crowd and, very similarly, our fans are going to be really keen to come and see us play,” Brayshaw told The West Australian.
“So we want as many people down there as we can, fill Optus Stadium and let’s try and get our first win for the year.”
Against Melbourne on Saturday, youngsters Brayshaw (29 disposals), Caleb Serong (26 disposals) and Adam Cerra (24 disposals) were shining lights for Freo in the middle alongside captain Nat Fyfe.
The midfield worked well with debutant ruck Lloyd Meek, winning the clearances 35-27.
While Freo were on top in the contest for significant period of the game, Brayshaw said that Fremantle let themselves down with their execution.
“The first round of any year is going to come with a lot of heat early. I think they handled that pressure better than we did,” Brayshaw said.
“That resulted in a few turnovers with lack of composure by hand and foot.
“But the main one for us I think throughout the whole day was really our mid-forward connection, so passing it into our forwards instead of putting it on their heads and letting roll-off defenders take grabs.
“We definitely didn’t make it easy for our forwards.
“Our contest was actually really strong and we matched them. I thought, particularly at stoppage, we really did that. We never gave up on the hunt.
“But it was our connection piece that let us down. So we’ve given ourselves looks and opportunities at goals, but we just weren’t executing and weren’t finishing.”