Hayden Young hopes Fremantle’s impressive victory over the Western Bulldogs will act as the perfect springboard into the upcoming finals series, which will see Fremantle feature for the first time since 2015.
The intercept defender labelled Saturday night’s win as a return to Fremantle’s early season form, impressed with Freo’s ball movement throughout the match.
Young said while skill errors and turnovers were still a feature, the risks taken were ultimately rewarded.
“It’s something we have been building towards all year, it was a strong start to the year, and we’ve had a few speed bumps along the way, but I think tonight we got back to playing some of our better footy, Young told 6PR post-game.
“We want to be doing that at this time of year and, hopefully, we can build some momentum off tonight.
“We lost our way a little bit with our contest method and ball movement at times.
“We still made some errors and weren’t perfect, but it was good that we took some risks and were rewarded.”
Young highlighted the performances of Rory Lobb (four goals) and Nathan O’Driscoll (20 disposals and a goal).
The 21-year-old acknowledged the improvements in Fremantle’s inside 50 entries against the Bulldogs, which led to twice as many marks inside 50 compared to the Dogs (18-9).
“I think Rory benefited from our good ball movement, and we had some really good entries where we were able to lower our eyes,” Young said.
“In the past few weeks, we’ve probably been blazing away a little bit and kicking to him and he has to compete with a pack of players.
“He was able to get some space tonight and we were able to hit him up and he finished his work which was really good.
“(O’Driscoll) is a really exciting prospect for us, we love the run and drive he provides, and he is pretty good in front of goal which is handy, it was great to see him back playing footy.”
Young said the attention will quickly shift to next Saturday’s home RAC Derby, an opportunity to send off retiring champion David Mundy with his final home and away game in front of a home crowd at Optus Stadium.
“It’s always a big game for us and we really look forward to these games,” Young said.
“Hopefully, we have a packed-out house to send off Dave – it’ll be his last home and away game at Optus which will be pretty special.
“We’re looking forward to getting back home and playing in front of our home crowd.”
