Senior coach Justin Longmuir is hopeful Nat Fyfe can continue to play through his shoulder injury despite showing signs of discomfort during Fremantle’s loss to Geelong on Thursday night at Optus Stadium.
Fyfe spent a period off the ground in the first term but returned to the field at the start of the second quarter and played out the game.
Longmuir said Freo were happy to continue playing Fyfe as long as he wasn’t doing further damage to his shoulder.
“He got through the game, he's going to have those moments,” Longmuir said.
“We'll just keep in constant dialogue with ‘Fyfey’ and make sure that we're not putting him at further risk and he feels that he can get out there and compete to a level that he's happy with, and we're happy with.
“He had those moments last week as well, where he felt he shoulder and had a few tonight, so we’ll just keep monitoring that.”
Longmuir said it was too early to discuss whether ruckman Sean Darcy or ruck/forward Rory Lobb would be fit to face Sydney after sustaining injuries in the clash.
Lobb was subbed off with an ankle injury while Darcy has a minor knee injury, and it is hoped that a long break between games will work in their favour.
“I'm not really going to go into that because I'm not going to declare that Sean and ‘Lobby’ are going to miss next week,” Longmuir said.
“We’ve got a 10-day break, we'll get them scanned tomorrow, we'll let everyone know the significance of the injuries, but I'm not going to rule them out for next week.”
Longmuir confirmed that midfielder Stephen Hill would play league football for Peel against Claremont on Sunday.
“He's still on restricted minutes though, so he's got a couple of weeks to get under his belt before he's available for AFL selection,” Longmuir said.
“He's done a mountain of work to get to this stage. He's had a lot of setbacks along the way so I'm really pleased to see him out there and now he can start building his form and get some continuity, so it will be great.”
Luke Valente update
Freo taught a lesson by Geelong
Starlight Purple Haze signed jumper auction
Our basics let us down