Fremantle
Coach – Justin Longmuir
2020 –
Points For – 16th
Points Against – 5th
Top 5 Best and Fairest
- Luke Ryan
- Nat Fyfe
- Adam Cerra
- David Mundy
- Andrew Brayshaw
2020 Rising Star Noms
Sam Sturt (Rnd 1)
Caleb Serong (Rnd 8)
Ins – Heath Chapman, Nathan O’Driscoll, Brandon Walker, Joel Western, Josh Treacy
Outs – Isaiah Butters, Jason Carter, Hugh Dixon, Jesse Hogan, Brandon Matera, Cam McCarthy, Tom North, Dillon O’Reilly, Jarvis Pina
My Prediction
There were times last year when Freo looked like they could be building towards something really good and other times when they felt like the same dysfunctional team from every year (except for that one where they got pumped in a grand final). The young talent stood up though last year and gave them hope for the future.
The backline was more than solid last year, for a team finishing twelfth, having the fifth best performed defence clearly shows they are doing something right. It isn’t spectacular but Hamling is a solid performer and well supported by Brennan and Pearce. Wilson and Ryan both deliver the ball well and set up run. They will be hoping this is the year Logue gets a solid run and shows what he is capable of.
Brayshaw and Cerra both stepped up last year and started to relieve the pressure on Fyfe, releasing him to spend more time forward. That being said, Fyfe is still their best mid and will be there when they need to swing things their way. Serong was a great find and looked solid from his first game and was a worthy Rising Star. The midfield doesn’t bat as deep as they would like but the top level of talent is quality.
The forward line has been the primary challenge for Freo for as long as I can remember, well at least since Modra and Waterhouse terrorised the competition. I don’t think they have the set up to take the competition by the neck yet either. That being said, Taberner looked a footballer and if they can keep Lobb forward then they have two pretty solid targets. Walters is in the conversation for best small forward in the competition and Fyfe will play forward a lot more. That should lead them to improving on last years performance.
They need Darcy to stay fit, he looks a really good quality young ruck but never seems to be able to string enough games together. Once he goes down, Lobb is forced into the ruck and that kills their forward line. The coach seems to have things tracking well at the moment and will be interesting to see how he improves their scoring over the next season or two.
I think Freo look like they have a solid list and there is inbuilt improvement with plenty of young players still finding their feet at AFL level. They still have a habit of leaving too few of the players to do too much of the heavy lifting but again that could improve with their young list. I feel like this year is probably one of consolidation for them and they should finish again between 10-12.
