With the beating drums and fans’ cheers building in the background, Aaron Sandilands made a passionate change room address to his teammates as they prepared to run out onto Optus Stadium against Geelong on Saturday.

The 268-game veteran demanded improvement from a ‘bottom end’ performance against the Western Bulldogs a week prior, and the playing group delivered just that to take down the top-placed Cats by 34 points.

Fremantle stifled the premiership favourites with their relentless pressure, laying 85 tackles as they controlled the contest from quarter time.

Sandilands said he was pleased to see the group respond to the criticism that the club has faced in recent weeks.

“The pressure that we’ve been under, and to be honest, the poor performance that we put in last week was bottom end and we can’t accept performances like that as a group,” Sandilands said post-game.

“I just thought it was an important time to grab the group together and say that we needed to respond.

“(I said) it’s the 22 that run out there today - we’re representing the club and the fans and we’ve got to bounce back from a really poor performance last week.”

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While Sandilands was thrilled with the win, he said that it was just important to put in an effort that made the fans proud.

“I thought for the four quarters, the 22 represented the club well,” Sandilands said.

“It wasn’t just about the scoreboard for us today, it was about our hit around the ball and how we went about the game.

“Obviously, we were really disappointed with the way we went last weekend and it was important that we responded from that.

“The whole club has been under pressure all week and it was really important that the 22 that represented Fremantle today gave effort.”