Read some of the key points from Friday’s RAC Derby media conference with senior coaches Justin Longmuir and Adam Simpson.
JUSTIN LONGMUIR
How are Brennan Cox and Luke Ryan?
I’m pretty comfortable with the way Brennan is going. He did a bit of running yesterday. He’s tracking pretty well. Luke’s got a knock to his calf in the game against North Melbourne and it hindered him a bit at training on Tuesday. Yesterday, it flared up a little bit. He didn’t get through. It’s similar with (what) ‘Simmo’ (Simpson said about) Tom Barrass, - we’ll give him a good fitness test tomorrow and if he passes that we’ll play him. If he doesn’t, we won’t take any risks. That’s where it sits at the moment.
Who plays if Ryan doesn’t play?
(Tobe Watson) is one we’ve got on standby. He was unlucky to go out of the side against Adelaide the week before. The week before, he played his role really well. If a mishap happens with one of the other two, Tobe’s the likely replacement.
The crowd is restricted to 75 per cent. Could Freo see that as a positive?
I think that’s probably clutching at straws a little bit. 45,000 Eagles supporters is still going to be pretty loud. It was disappointing for our fans last week and disappointing for the club (to not have crowds against North Melbourne last weekend) but the positive is that we’ve come out of it (lockdown) pretty quickly. We’ve got a home game next week so it all bodes well for that. I think whether it’s your home crowd or an away crowd, I still think your players draw off that energy. It’s definitely going to be better than playing in front of an empty stadium, which we experienced last week. It’s good that the Government’s got on top of it quickly and we’re returning to some sort of normality.
Do you see this as a good chance to beat West Coast and get to 5-2 and set up your season?
We’re just seeing it as another challenge. I think West Coast’s form at home in particular has been outstanding. Their game against Port Adelaide not long ago, they smashed a top side here and they’ve been really strong. We see it as a really big challenge to see where we’re at. We need to build on our form. We haven’t played (a consistent) four quarters yet. Our first half against Adelaide was disappointing. Last week, we played in spits and spurts. We need to keep building on our footy as well and build some consistency in what we’re trying to do. This week is another opportunity for us to do that.
Clearly, we haven’t beaten West Coast for a long time. I’ve (coached Fremantle) once (against West Coast) in the regular season since we’ve been playing a new brand and a new system.
Will the potential out of Tom Barrass affect how you select the team?
Internally, we’re still trying to strike the right balance in our team. Last week, we probably went in with four genuine midfielders. There’s an opportunity for us to bring Darcy Tucker in to give us another midfielder this week. Does that mean we go a little bit smaller in our front half or stay taller and go one less small? We’re consistently tweaking our team to see what works best, the opposition plays a part in that but I think our own balance plays more of a part and we’re still tying to find that.
Is Darcy Tucker best 22? If he’s fit that would mean he should play?
Darcy’s going to come in. He’s in our best 22 for sure. He’s had a recurring hamstring issue. He had played a game in the reserves (for Peel) two weeks ago, unfortunately, he missed last week (due to the Covid lockdown) but I think he’s got a good body of work behind him. He can play multiple roles for us, he adds flexibility to our midfield and other areas of the ground. We’ll welcome him back this week.
ADAM SIMPSON
Will Tom Barrass play?
We’re still holding out hope. He’s got a knock really late in the game (against Geelong) in the shoulder. He didn’t have another contest after it so he couldn’t really test it out. We’re leaving it to the last minute, we’ll test him out tomorrow morning. We won’t muck around, if he’s not in, he’s not in, but we’ll give him every chance to play.
If Luke Ryan doesn’t play, will that play a part in your selection?
I’m not quite sure if it sends the right message to your team if you have to wait until the last minute to change and try and expose another team’s potential weakness. We’ll pick our side the day before the game. We’ve got JK (Josh Kennedy) coming back, so we could have quite a tall forward line but quite a small back line. We’ll keep working through that once we know what happens with Tom Barrass.
Would you consider tagging David Mundy?
Two years ago, I was thinking he was just about done - thinking ‘he would be a good coach, we should maybe see where he’s at’ - now we might be tagging him on the weekend!
I think collectively, (Fremantle’s) midfield is in a really good space. They share the load, for the last three weeks there’s been a tag thereabouts on one of those players and the other guys carry the load quite well. They look after each other around the ball as well. We’ve been tagging for a couple weeks, whatever decision we make, it will be interesting how we go about it because sometimes, if you take out one, the others step up. It may be a futile exercise. We’ll work through that ourselves. (Mundy) is in great form.
Harry Edwards is back for his second game. What will he bring?
Harry will come in, he’s playing. He played against Geelong last year and got knocked out in the first five minutes. It sort of counts as a game I suppose. He’ll come in and replace Jeremy McGovern and play back. He’s 200cm, he’s probably grown 10 cm in a year and a half. He’s competitive, we think he’s ready – as ready as he can be at the moment. We need him to play like he’s played 50 games. He’s been emergency for a few weeks, he’s playing pretty good WAFL footy under duress, as there’s a lot of supply at the WAFL Eagles at the moment in the backline. He’ll come in and play a role for us.
What is your motivation this week after last week’s loss to Geelong?
Win, lose or draw we want to play a brand our supporters are proud of, we were really disappointed last week. We’ve been inconsistent this year. Having said that, the two games we lost prior to Geelong, we were in winning positions at three quarter time. We haven’t been consistent over four quarters for most of the year. If we can’t play four quarters of footy this week, we won’t win. That’s our goal, that’s our challenge. Regardless of personnel we want to play a brand people are proud of, win, lose or draw. That’s our challenge this week.
What went wrong against Geelong?
Part of what happened on the weekend was momentum was lost out of the middle, we didn’t defend as a team and we didn’t handle when Jeremy McGovern went down. The time before, against the Saints, we got beaten out of the middle, we couldn’t do anything with the ball, we got pressured and outmuscled, so every situation is a little bit different. But regardless of that, you need your leaders to stand up. You can support in the box with some structural changes to slow down the game. We’ve tweaked a couple of things with that during the week. You’ve got to keep learning. It’s happened twice in the last three weeks. If happens again hopefully we’re better equipped.
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