Following Fremantle’s qualifying final exit, senior coach Trent Cooper has highlighted areas Freo need to strengthen during the off-season in order to keep up with the top AFLW teams.
 
The coaching staff now has the difficult task of conducting exit interviews and determining who will retain their spot on the list.
 
Cooper highlighted that Freo need to add size to their midfield after being out-matched by Melbourne in Saturday’s 17-point loss.
 
“Our size through our midfield…really Hayley Miller is our only midfielder with any real size about her. Hayley’s had a pretty solid year, Kiara Bowers an outstanding year…Bianca (Webb) may (join them) in the future,” Cooper told 6PR.
 
“They’ve had to do a lot of work and a lot of the time that was enough but on the weekend, when you come against those really quality midfields like Melbourne, Adelaide and Collingwood have, then it’s just a bit too far for us to overcome.”

Cooper said Fremantle wouldn’t limit themselves to local talent when it came to strengthening their list.
 
“It’s difficult in the AFLW market because we’re in WA so all of our players are WA based at the moment,” Cooper said.
 
“It will be a change if we do get someone from the eastern states.
 
“We’ll try to position ourselves as best we can to be able to challenge next year and the inside mid is the obvious area that we’d like to go after.”
 
Cooper said he was excited about who could emerge from the 2021 draft class.
 
“There is a bit of talent coming through this year’s draft,” Cooper said.
 
“We’ve got the State 18s playing in Melbourne in the week after next.
 
“It’s still very busy at this time of year with an eye on the future to see what sort of list we can put together to be back and challenging the other top six or seven clubs.”