Okay, I’ll admit it, I was extremely bullish about my side in the pre-season.
I had Fremantle pushing for the top four and was prepared to argue the point with those underrating us. Two weeks in and they’ve made me look ridiculously foolish.
I was prepared to write off Round 1 as an aberration, a really bad week, just a blip and hoped they would turned it around against last years wooden-spooners at home, how wrong I was.
Saturday night’s loss to North Melbourne has proven to me that their is a significant system malfunction at Fremantle and this doesn’t look like it’ll be the year of Flagmantle after all.
The optimism coming into the season from Freo fans was huge, and had been driven by the club. Justin Longmuir and new captain Alex Pearce were saying all the right things and the feeling, at least in the west, was that the team was primed to contend. However, beneath all of that optimism lies a nagging question, how are they going to score enough points to compete?
What I didn’t anticipate though, was the complete obliteration of Longmuir’s game plan, and that it wouldn’t simply be scoring that was an issue, but also problems with the highly rated midfield and half back lines.
What’s become clear is that teams have studied the way Fremantle played last season and have quickly realised that flooding back and defending the ground completely derails their methodical, slow build, game style.
In last years’ semi-final Collingwood completely picked apart Fremantle’s ball movement with a flood defence and then rapid offence, often putting it’s defence, under serious pressure. Ross Lyon even admitted to studying this game and then put in a Ross Lyon coaching performance for the ages, in completely stifling and suffocating the kick heavy Dockers, even with an undermanned St Kilda side that tore a huge hole in Freo’s confidence.
But it was Saturday nights’ loss to North Melbourne that really set the alarm bells blaring. The same team that absolutely decimated David Noble’s North Melbourne side last year looked completely at sea going forward, struggling to score against a side who had finished comfortably last in the previous two seasons.
Some credit of course has to go to Alastair Clarkson and North Melbourne, but clearly the game plan that Fremantle developed last year has been worked out and needs to be tinkered with.
The biggest concern seems to be the lack of a plan B from Longmuir and the coaching staff. They seem reluctant to change any plans from pre-season and have been overly conservative in selection and game style.
The pure stubbornness not to insert Nat Fyfe into the midfield when the game was on the line was ridiculous, as have been the decisions to favour long time senior B-grade depth players like Ethan Hughes, Bailey Banfield, Nathan Wilson and Matt Taberner, over younger, more exciting talent.
Then we come to the Luke Jackson situation. Freo simply can’t afford for this to be a flop, they’ve paid too much for him both in money and in draft capital; remember Melbourne has Freo’s first pick next year, meaning the worse Freo are this year, the more Jackson costs. Basically they’ve backed themselves into a corner and they simply need to find a way for this to work. Right now, it’s looking dire.
Some might say I’m overreacting here, but a loss to West Coast this week is probably season-ending, and the coaching staff simply cannot wait too long to make a few important changes or else this will fast become a complete waste of a season, where Freo heads backwards.
So what should they do?
This is an obvious one. Pending his fitness of course which is a major question mark, Nat Fyfe is still a midfielder, he always has been and always will be. Stop trying to turn him into something he isn’t. Whether he can return to beast mode, isn’t a certainty, but I can’t help but feel that without Dave Mundy, Freo are missing that big body in the middle and even Fyfe at 75% of his Brownlow best will add something different.
David Mundy is a massive loss for the Dockers. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
Fremantle don’t have a quality key forward, they have a couple of young developing players in Amiss and Treacy, and an injury prone Matt Taberner who simply looks like he will never really become anymore than a B-grader.
Fremantle’s three best forwards are all small forwards; Michael Walters, Sam Switkowski and Lachlan Schultz – so back them in along with medium forwards that have a bit of pace like Michael Frederick and Sam Sturt and bring the ball to ground wherever possible.
Jaeger O’Meara also showed some ability as a medium forward at Hawthorn and I’d stick with that as an option as well. Collingwood were a kick away from a grand final last year, with their major key forwards being Brodie Mihochek and a resting ruckman. I’d be doing something similar here.
This one is obvious, but with an inexperienced undermanned forward line, it has become even more critical to move the ball at pace and be a bit more daring. Guys like Hayden Young, Jordan Clark and Brandon Walker have the ability to do this, but are being hamstrung by an ultra conservative game plan.
Take the shackles off and let them have a crack. The blueprint at the moment is Collingwood, Freo are so far off that it’s concerning, but I honestly believe that the personnel is good enough. There needs to be more trust from the coach’s box and less fear of making mistakes.
The Freo social media boffins have been calling Luke Jackson a football ‘unicorn’ but right now he sits in football no-mans land. What position is he actually playing? He’s not a fantastic mark and doesn’t have natural forward craft, so effectively he is currently an $800,000 a year back up ruckman.
Luke Jackson has made a poor start in Fremantle. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)
There was a glimpse of what he can do in the midfield in Round 1, where he actually went into the centre square and won a clearance. Could it be that when he isn’t rucking, playing as a tall midfielder might be his best position?
We are seeing it with every other team. Freo have talented youngsters like Neil Erasmus, Matt Johnson, Jye Amiss, Sam Sturt and Brandon Walker sitting there as emergencies or playing WAFL practice matches, while B-graders who simply aren’t going to be apart of thier next contending team continue to play games.
The selection committee has been too conservative and simply needs to unleash these guys into the senior team. The reality is that the club isn’t ready to contend for Top 4 as they thought they were, and the entire rebuild has been based on youth, why stop now and revert back to playing older role players?
I really hope to see more of a statement at the selection table this week. A Western Derby is always an exciting fixture and I really hope the coaching staff and the players have reflected on the first two weeks. The season isn’t completely done yet, but without some level of change it may very well be in a couple of weeks.
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