Fremantle captain Nat Fyfe says that neither he nor his teammates will hide behind any potential excuses after Saturday’s 133-point loss to Geelong at GMHBA Stadium.
Freo fell apart following a promising first quarter that saw them leading by nine points at the opening break.
For the remainder of the game, Geelong kicked 23 unanswered goals to deliver Fremantle’s heaviest loss in club history.
“We won’t be dismissing it,” Fyfe said.
“A performance like that is not acceptable. Our members and fans will be hurting, as are the players and coaches.”
While Geelong fielded a significantly more experienced team on the day, Fyfe said that making any comparisons of age or experience would serve to distract from the result.
“We can hide behind the fact that we have young players, that we’re on a development path, that we’ve won eight games this season and we don’t have much to play for to finish the year, but no, I don’t want to be accepting that and Ross Lyon won’t be accepting that,” Fyfe said.
“As a club, we want to be competitive every time we step out on the field. We don’t have to win but we want to be competitive and today wasn’t that.”
Fyfe said the playing group will demand a significantly improved performance for Fremantle’s final game of the season against Collingwood next Saturday at Optus Stadium.
“It’s the job of the captain and the leaders to get around our younger players and make sure, that even though they’re hurting, they’re taking the lessons out of it and they’re not beating themselves up,” Fyfe said.
“We want to be able to gather what we can for motivation to put in a big week at training to finish our year in a better fashion than this week.
“We need to knuckle down and work our way out of this situation. There’s no magic fix.
“We’re not going to trade anyone in who’s going to make this situation any better. We need to galvanise a group of players who are committed to hard work and turn this situation around.”
