Fremantle senior coach Justin Longmuir is proud of captain Alex Pearce’s journey to his 150-game milestone.
Speaking at his Monday morning media conference, Longmuir said the AFL world is seeing what he - and the Club - have valued about Pearce for some time now.
“Super proud, and lucky,” Longmuir said.
“I think the AFL world’s slowly caught on to how good a leader he is.
“He's got a real presence about him. He picks and chooses his moments, he's got a hard edge with his leadership, but he's got a real caring nature about him and he’s able to impose himself on games and lead in games, which is a real balance for any leader to find.
“The resilience he’s shown to be able to get over his injuries and become a more consistent player, and then not only just focus on himself in those moments, but make sure he's focusing on the team and how we're getting better, has been a pleasure to watch.
“I'm glad the rest of the competition has caught up.”
Pearce’s milestone game will come in the highly anticipated clash against Geelong on Thursday 18 June, with Freo set to bring Stealth to Optus Stadium as a home game for the first time.
Geelong is the only side to have defeated Fremantle in 2026, claiming victory in Round 1 by 10 points.
Longmuir said his side took several learnings from that loss.
“They have a strong front-half game; they locked the ball in the front half against us and scored heavily the last time we played,” Longmuir said.
“They're playing some really good footy off the contest, they get bang for buck and get goal-side really quickly with their high half-forwards, and look to use them, which makes it really dangerous, and they look for their deep forwards.
“Clearly their backs are doing a good job of holding up their end of the bargain as well.
“They’re a really balanced team, as everyone knows, and all their phases connect really well.
“They're really mature and they throw things around and throw different looks at the opposition, so we understand the scenario.
“We couldn't quite get it done last time we played them, but still played some good footy, got the game looking how we wanted to for a fair portion of it.
“So, some positives to take out of that, but we just need to do it for longer.”
