To the Purple Army,

Now we’re sitting in the comfort of our own homes after a really challenging year, it’s safe to say we’re disappointed that our 2020 season is over.

Despite missing out on finals, I’m really proud of the way we grew throughout the year.

I’m proud of the way we handled everything this season threw at us. We relocated our entire football operations three times, heading to our hub in the Gold Coast, back to Perth and then finishing the season in Cairns.

Near the end of the season, we played some of our best footy during a period of four games in 15 days.

We played games off four-day breaks and travel. When we played North Melbourne, we spent four hours in the air travelling from Cairns to the Gold Coast and back on the same day and came out of it with a strong team performance and the four points.

These are experiences that we went through together as a team and can build off in the future.

As a senior coach I can’t help but dwell on the games that got away and I’m sure many of you feel the same.

I’m competitive and I want us to win every game. I want us to be playing at this time of the year and not sitting on the sidelines watching.

In three of the first four games, we had big momentum swings that ultimately cost us.

In the first quarter of the Essendon game, we coughed up five goals and lost by a goal. In the second quarter of the Gold Coast game, we coughed up four goals in the space of 116 seconds and we lost by two goals.

By the end of the season, while we still had some disappointing final quarters against Richmond and the Bulldogs, we made progress as our football became more consistent.

We were competitive for longer in games and I felt our players started to understand their roles in the team a lot better. They started to play more instinctively as the year went on.

We’ve already seen a number of players recognised for their efforts. Luke Ryan, Matt Taberner and Nat Fyfe are in the All Australian squad, Sean Darcy, Adam Cerra and Andrew Brayshaw are in the 22under22 and Caleb Serong was voted the best first year player by the AFL Players' Association.

It’s nice for some of our guys to get that recognition however a lot of our players, not just the guys mentioned, have played really consistent footy this year and they really deserve it.

It does feel that as a team, we are getting pats on the back but that doesn’t change the fact that we’re at home watching finals instead of playing in them.

Some of this recognition can come from a lack of initial expectation.

I want us to get to a point where there are significant expectations on us and we handle those expectations and perform.

So while we have made some gains this year as a group, we are far from satisfied with where we’re at, and that was the discussion we had after our game against the Bulldogs on Sunday.

Every single person involved in our program has got to drive each other to improve, I’ve got to become a better coach, our coaches have to become a better coaching group, our players have got to get better and help each other get better.

While I have mentioned how proud I was of the way the players have handled this season, our coaches and staff have also been exceptional.

This year, the staff answered everything that was thrown at them. There was no whinging or complaining, everyone got on with what they could control and chipped in where possible.

I’ve seen massive growth in the way everyone looked to help each other, that’s players to staff, staff to players, players to players and staff to staff. It’s been terrific.

I’d like to think that desire to pitch in and leave no-one behind is ingrained in the Fremantle culture, as I’ve also seen that same desire to help from our members this season.

At the start of the year we asked if you could still remain members, even with the prospect of not being able to attend any games. And somehow, our membership numbers grew.

When we finally got to play a home game, you could just feel the passion and the positivity.

I mentioned it’s been a tough year in the AFL but one of our motivating factors to stay on task was the knowledge that it has been even tougher on a lot of you.

Without our fans, we’re not a club. We understand that. So count on us to do everything we can to work hard, try and improve and come back better next year.

All we ask from the players is that we make you proud every time we walk out.

That’s our aim.

Justin.