A decision to play three talls up forward has paid off for senior coach Justin Longmuir, with ruckman Sean Darcy having a day out as a tall forward in Fremantle’s 15-point win against Hawthorn at Optus Stadium.
Darcy had five contested marks – all inside 50 – as well as three goals in one of his career-best performances.
Longmuir had initially ruled out playing the likes of Josh Treacy and Sam Sturt in his mid-week media conference before calling both up as surprise selections.
The debut of Treacy meant Fremantle had two genuine key forwards in Treacy and Matt Taberner as well as Darcy up front, with Lloyd Meek the primary ruck in other areas of the ground.
“It has always been a bit of a battle in my mind that (whether) three talls work as a forward line, but we decided to go with it,” Longmuir said.
“We even thought it was going to rain and Josh is one of our best ball handlers, he is aggressive with his tackling and his defensive attributes hold up in any condition.
“We rolled the dice a little bit with our three talls and for the large part it worked pretty well for us.”
Longmuir praised Darcy after bouncing back from what he called a down week against Carlton.
“His ability to move on after a contest, whether it be a good or bad contest was heaps better,” Longmuir said.
“I think a bit more time in the ruck gets him into the game. Playing three talls gave one of them a mismatch at times down there, but he was a by-product of that a couple of times.
“A couple of times he just took really strong marks even against the ruckman. He was a little bit down last week, second game back and he hasn’t done much pre-season, I thought he really hit his straps today.”
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Midfielder Adam Cerra hopes that Longmuir continues using both Darcy and Meek in the same line-up.
Freo also halved most of the ruck contests against Hawthorn duo Ben McEvoy and Jon Ceglar, with the Hawks narrowly leading the hitouts 33-30.
“I really liked him today. His ability to go forward and impact, take those big grabs and execute, it’s another weapon that we have in our team,” Cerra said.
“For Lloyd to also be stepping up as well, we don’t really have a backup ruck in the team anymore, we have two really dominant ruckmen and that’s really good for the midfield and the rest of the team.
“At the moment, they’ve been working well together. We’ve still got Rory to come in as well so he’s going to add another layer and be another threat down forward. I think it’s working really well.”
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Match report: Freo's hard-fought win
Justin Longmuir's post-match Q&A
