Senior coach Justin Longmuir said Fremantle have sent of footage to the AFL's umpiring department to confirm the players were acting within the rules during Fremantle’s clash with Essendon in round nine at Marvel Stadium.
The use of Caleb Serong as a tagger on Zach Merrett was criticised following the game and Longmuir said Freo had gone to the AFL for ‘clarity’.
Longmuir conceded that a Fremantle player had stepped over the line in one incident, where Darcy Tucker gave away a free kick and was fined $3000 by the Match Review Officer for rough conduct.
“We’ve put a few edits to the umpiring department. We haven’t heard back from them yet,” Longmuir said.
“We just want clarity on what the off-the-ball stuff looks like and where we went wrong.
“I think we’ve got to be really careful that we don’t just talk about one incident and label our team and our players’ off-the-ball tactics.
“Because I think that can carry on into next week. And we want to be really clear that we didn’t think the off-the-ball stuff was there. We want to make sure that we get a fair run this week.
“We don’t want everyone looking at the job Caleb does and treating him (differently) because of one incident. We just need clarification on a few different things.”
Longmuir said he was pleased to see Fremantle be more physical in the contest.
It’s a contrast to Freo’s previous game against Carlton at Marvel Stadium, where Longmuir said he was disappointed that the players weren’t holding up in the contest.
“We’ll stick up for each other and we’ll continue to stuck up for each other,” Longmuir said.
“I don’t think, on the weekend we went outside the rules, apart from one incident which they got rewarded for and Darcy copped his whack at the match review panel. We didn’t get away with it.”
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