Fremantle senior coach Justin Longmuir says beating the Western Bulldogs at the source will be key in Sunday’s final home-and-away game of the season.
Speaking at his Wednesday morning media conference, Longmuir explained how buying into external noise would serve no purpose for his team ahead of the Bulldogs challenge.
“Winning at the contest helps. People talk about their (the Bulldogs) ball use, but that comes off the back of winning contests and getting it on the outside,” Longmuir said.
“They’re a good clearance and contest team. They squeeze down, defend the game and play it in their front half, which creates more scoring opportunities.
“You’ve got to get it done at the source against them. I think they beat someone by 51 in contested possession a few weeks ago, so that’s not going to get it done.
“We’ve got to get our hands on it and get it going our way.”
The Western Bulldogs average 108.9 points per game across the season, making them the highest-scoring team offensively from the first 23 rounds. However, Fremantle has been strong defensively, conceding an average of just 77.63 points per game.
In the Club’s 15 wins this season, that number drops even further to 71.8.
When the two sides met in Round 4, Fremantle prevailed by 16 points despite 19 more inside 50s for the Bulldogs.
Speaking on the external pressure and noise ahead of the clash, Longmuir stated that falling into those conversations served the team no purpose.
“Everyone wants to build it up - and yeah it’s a big game - but really what we have to do is what we’ve done for the back end of the season,” Longmuir said.
“Everyone wants to catastrophise after one performance, but as a Club we lean in on our last 12 or 13 weeks.
“We’ve been strong and there’s a good blueprint there for us to succeed this weekend.
“The fans will be building it up as a big game, but what our game needs is to go over there with a plan and execute it, and that comes back to process.
“I think our process has held us in really good stead at the back end of the season. We’ve won four of our last five road games and we’ll lean in on those things instead of the emotion, excitement and outside noise.
“The pressure is on them (the Bulldogs) as well. Last time I checked, they’ve won one less game than us.
“The narrative around some of this stuff gets to me a little bit … we are on the same number of wins as Collingwood, who are sitting fourth.
“Everyone’s talking like we’re going to miss the finals, but I have full faith in this group to be able to go over there, get it done, play our way — and I’m confident our way is good enough.”
Bouncedown between Fremantle and the Western Bulldogs is 1.15 pm WST at Marvel Stadium.
