Fremantle headed to Geelong in round seven for what was framed as an almost impossible task of taking down one the AFL’s best teams in their home fortress, but Justin Longmuir gave the playing group an important reminder that the Club had done it before.
Longmuir said it was important to focus on the positive aspects of heading to Geelong, feeling the ground size suited the game plan while instilling some extra belief from the Club’s famous 2013 Qualifying Final win.
“With the ground size, we went pretty positive with it. We feel like we played Adelaide Oval really well. We went back to a few of those things we went to in round one. Then we looked for some other positives. It's probably seen one of our greatest ever wins, and that was against Geelong in 2013. So we tried to frame a few positives out of that game,” Longmuir told 3AW.
“What can happen, you get so caught up in the travel, the ground size, the weather and being down in Geelong, you actually forget about what's really important on that ground and that's the contest.
“It's a skinny ground. Geelong play a really good contested brand of footy so we tried to make sure we didn't forget what was really important.
“We probably forgot about that in the first 10 minutes of the game but after I thought we were really committed to the contest and our pressure.”
The victory has locked Fremantle in the top four for another week with a six and one record, and Longmuir said it was among his favourite wins from his three seasons in charge, especially with his best midfielder, forward and ruckman on the sidelines in Nat Fyfe, Matt Taberner and Sean Darcy.
“It's right up there, obviously we were missing a few players and it's a long trip from Perth to Geelong. I'm very proud of the way we performed,” Longmuir said.
“We took some of Geelong's strengths away and played our footy and it's good to come home with the four points.”
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