By Marked
April 21st 2009 @ 1:30am
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Can Freo fans take this rubbish anymore?
During the 2006 season, Fremantle fans had reason to think that their club had come of age. Towards the end of the season, the club won nine games in a row and stormed into the finals.
They went on to win a semi-final against Melbourne, finally ending their dream season on the SCG against Sydney.
If they had beaten Sydney, they would have faced West Coast, a club that they had already clinically disposed of twice that year.
Now, just a few short years later, the Dockers find themselves on the bottom of the ladder, winless after four rounds.
What has gone wrong? Did they get ahead of themselves and think they were better than they were?
Either way, what the club needs now is what Mark Harvey is providing: a pathway forward for their not inconsiderable young talent. Against a rampant St Kilda, Fremantle played four first year players.
Harvey is not shielding the players from the fight, but then, he may not have a choice. With the well documented leaving of eight senior players last year, there is only onechoice available to the rookie coach, the future.
Unless Harvey is allowed the time to develop this squad, as we have observed other coaches such as Clarkson do, then Fremantle is destined to repeat the sins of the past.
And the sins of clubs such as Richmond.
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(9)
Kick2Kick said | April 21st 2009 @ 10:36am | Report comment
Think your missing the point hear Mark.
- Your lists average age is the same as top side St Kilda
- Your most paid/ senior players are the ones that are not performing (Halseby, Schammer, Pavlich, Solomon, Tarrent, Bradley etc)
- Nothing seems to change, you still suck! year in-year out!
- The players do not play for the coach/ team.
I think Fremantle are hiding behind the fact that you got rid of several senior players last year and you had several first year players playing this year.
Kurt said | April 21st 2009 @ 1:13pm | Report comment
Put simply, yes I think Freo fans CAN put up with this rubbish indefinitely. Their club is been pretty much crap since day one, had 15 minutes in the sunshine in 2006 and now has returned to its long term trajectory of incompetence. But they still seem to get 30K plus to all of their home games, so one can only assume that the expectations of fans are sufficiently low that this meets their expectations.
BigAl said | April 21st 2009 @ 2:31pm | Report comment
The incompetence of Fremantle management is demonstrated by the fact that Harvey is still coach, even more so – that he was appointed in the first place!
He just flopped into the coaching position because management were too lazy to look for the best candidate when they sacked the last coach.
If you looked into Harvey’s career as a player & an assistant coach, it’s pretty obvious he lacks the character for the top job.
All he had going for him was that he was an assistant coach to Sheedy at Essendon, – and given the fact that Sheeds was their for 25 ? years – hardly a rare qualification.
squizzy said | April 21st 2009 @ 5:50pm | Report comment
Freo has some good young players but they need to rebuild. It has to happen this draft or they will find themselves in real trouble for years. They need to hope Melbourne loses less than five games as well as themselves. Then they need to get value out of Pavlich by trading him to Melbourne for there priority pick 1st RD and second selection.
matta said | April 21st 2009 @ 6:04pm | Report comment
Squizzy? rebuild what? they have never built anything that has fallen and needed to be fixed….
Two points that sum up Freo and why they are so bad.
1) Recruited ’star’ forward who has clear attitude issues and cant even average 2 goals per game. CT was, like some of the boys at Richmond, made by the Victorian centric press. If he had performed like he did at Collingwood in any other state no one would have ever heard of him.
2) Although out of form, M Pavolich is their best Forward, Midfield and Back line player.
How can you expect to compete?
Michael C said | April 22nd 2009 @ 11:23am | Report comment
Freo expectations surely weren’t high for this year??? And, seemingly their fans were aware (as you’d expect), and it’s only the blindness to happenings west of Ceduna that see Melb media caught a little by surprise.
Be they good or bad, too old or too slow – after last year, the following players were delisted/retired/traded – M.Carr, J.Carr, S.McManus, P.Bell, Mark Johnson and H.Black.
That’s taken a hugh number of games experience and hardened bodies out of the midfield rotations.
The question of course is on some of the recruiting such as Mark Johnson from Essendon. Tarrant and Solomon too are dubious recruitment decisions, although, Solomon can add value if not suspended and Taz seems to be settling okay up back.
Freo lacked pace and have decided to clean out.
Suddenly Ibbottson and Palmer and Hill are required to play ‘A’ grade roles. They aren’t up to it (yet).
Reality presently is that Sandilands is down a bit, and, even when winning in the ruck, Freo seem to be wasting his natural advantage by not winning the clearances, which begs the question of why so many hardened bodies were jettisoned from that area. Perhaps they just desperately want to fast track Palmer et al. That means a season of pain.
Rich_daddy said | April 22nd 2009 @ 10:35pm | Report comment
Yeah Freo form has been shocking, but this is hardly new. Since joining the league in 1995 they have only made the finals twice and in one of those years they were belted in the first week by Essendon. That suggests to me that there are far more deep rooted problems.
Player performance is another big one. Adam McPhee was ordinary at Fremantle but has played some strong footy at Essendon. Paul Medhurst is the classic example. When Freo traded him for Chris Tarrant most people thought Freo had done a decent deal. Fast forward two years and Paul Medhurst has gone from an ordinary player to All Australian selection in 2008 and is one of Collingwood’s best players. Chris Tarrant on the other hand has done very little at Fremantle and now plays in the back line despite playing most of his career at full forward. Brodie Holland and James Clement also spring to mind.
Yes freo have some problems but as a swans supporter, I am a bit nervous about the game on Subiaco on Saturday.
Green n Gold 2010 said | April 23rd 2009 @ 12:09am | Report comment
Get Sadaam Hussein to run the training sessions
Tell the players to run down the corridor and kick it to pavlich
More aggressive players like Solomon
Recruit Barry Hall
Give them a 100 pt head start
Michael C said | April 23rd 2009 @ 10:48am | Report comment
Rich_daddy
don’t forget Peter Bell and Winnie Arbraham who both blossomed at North Melbourne.
(we’ve done our share of recycling Freo lads – - not entirely successful – but, trying to top up in the 2000s with Spida Burton, Dhurkkay (rip), Brown and Sinclair – - oh ‘eck, in there way back was Chris Groom!!!)
Freo made the mistake of judging Farmer and Medhurst together rather than apart – and, when willing to call stumps on Farmer, should have retained Medhurst.