Executive General Manager of Football Joe Brierty has provided updates on Fremantle’s playing list, coaching department and potential activity in the upcoming Continental Tyres AFL Trade Period commencing next Monday.
Brierty spoke to the media on Thursday morning following exit meetings throughout this week with the playing group, and detailed the below.
On Nathan O’Driscoll exploring his options –
The only one that we're really working through is Nathan O'Driscoll. Our discussion with Nathan and his management at the moment is that he'll look to explore his options through the trade period, and then we'll work through what that looks like.
We've had discussions across the entire year with Nathan and his management…we put some things on the table to Nathan and what they look like. As we got to the back end of the year, we made a decision with him and his management that we would hold off any further conversations until the season concluded, and then we revisited that this week and agreed with both parties that he would entertain and explore (with other clubs).
We're comfortable with him exploring those options…and depending whether something comes to fruition or not - if it doesn't - then we'll have those discussions post the trade period.
On Sean Darcy’s future –
Sean wants to stay, and we want Sean to stay. I think he's got a fire in his belly to get back in the 23. He's a Doig medallist and we talk about the calibre of the player and when he's up and playing his best footy. He needs to get his body right and he needs that continuity, and we're a better team when Sean's up and going.
Our discussions have been that he needs to work on a few aspects of his game. I think he's clear on what that looks like, but Sean's not entertaining anything from anyone else. He's contracted with the Club for a number of years to come, so I see him being in the purple.
On Jaren Carr’s list spot –
We’ve made a commitment to Jaren that he'll have a contract with the Club, but what that looks like will depend on the trade period. If there's an opportunity for him to stay on the primary list, we'll look at that, but if not then the most likely option would be that Jaren would be delisted and guaranteed a rookie contract.
We've loved his development and the way he's gone about it. Our list spots are pretty tight at the moment…but we’ll know what our list looks like after the Trade Period and before list lodgement. Whether he's on the primary list or whether he's a rookie next year, we guarantee that he'll be at the Club.
On the vacant Peel Thunder Senior Coach position
It's definitely going to be a discussion on what that structure looks like. We're very lucky to have a fantastic coaching group and the talent that we have in our development ranks I would say is up there in the league. We’ll have some discussions around how we best structure up because it's a different one when you deal with the Peel alignment from a coaching department perspective.
I think all of our development coaches can take the next step. Obviously, we've got Todd Curley who's departing as well so we've got a couple of roles in our development program at the moment.
Tendai Mzungu is doing a fantastic job, our head of development Geoff Valentine has been unbelievable in the work that he does with our playing group. We'll have those discussions as we work through the coming weeks and consider what new talent might come into our coaching ranks as well.
On Nathan Broad’s return to WA –
Nathan and I have had a couple of discussions about coaching, we haven't had discussions about playing. We'll look to catch up with him in the next fortnight and see what his plans might be. He's transitioning back to WA with his family, so we'll have those discussions with him, and he may form a part of our process in replacing those roles.
On the players now heading into the off-season –
We allow them to go away and recharge, and we'll set up a program for them that we’ll communicate in the coming weeks. It is a shorter break than we've previously had, there's only two and a half weeks before Christmas and in terms of preparing for round one next year, we need to make sure we get the right load into the group as well.
The pleasing thing is that as we went into the finals series, we were feeling quite fresh going to the grand final and that was the feedback from our players that emotionally and physically going into that game, they actually felt like they'd been the best they'd ever been at the end of the season. It’s a credit to our performance health team to have them in that situation.
I love how connected this group is and they will take their time now to go in different ways - some will travel away - and then when they're ready to get back to work, they'll come back together.
