Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir doesn’t need his gamers to wallow in their very own self pity and has urged his gamers to not “catastrophise” their present predicament.
The Dockers barely put up a whimper in final week’s 53-point residence loss to Carlton as they combat to maintain their faint finals hopes alive.
That insipid show got here only a week after Fremantle imploded within the closing time period of a 29-point loss to the Western Bulldogs.
The pair of defeats has left Fremantle struggling in 14th spot with a 7-9 document.
Fremantle will begin as rank underdogs in opposition to Collingwood on the MCG on Saturday, with their victory hopes additional cruelled by the unavailability of key gamers Brennan Cox (ankle), Hayden Young (ankle), Caleb Serong (suspension) and Michael Frederick (soreness).
But Longmuir doesn’t need his gamers to really feel sorry for themselves.
“The players are motivated,” Longmuir informed reporters on Thursday.
“They’ve been really keen this week to rectify last weekend,. Sometimes we can catastrophise in this game.
“We had a bad game against.Carlton. We’re not proud of that game.
“But the week before we pushed the Bulldogs all the way and were in front in the last quarter on the road.
“And the week before (that) we beat an Essendon team that just had a really good game against Adelaide.
“So yeah, we don’t want to catastrophise internally.”
Longmuir mentioned the membership’s leaders delivered a collection of sincere and frank messages throughout this week’s staff assembly.
“It was really well received,” Longmuir mentioned.
“They took that feedback on board and we trained really well yesterday. So that’s what you want to see as a coach.”
Fremantle are one of many youngest groups within the competitors.
With youth comes inconsistency and Longmuir feels his gamers have change into internalised at occasions this yr when the tide has turned in opposition to them in video games.
Longmuir would like to see his gamers change into extra vocal on the sector throughout these robust intervals.
“I would love players who have played a handful of games to come in and rant and rave and be really loud in those moments,” Longmuir mentioned.
“But the fact is we’ve got a lot of guys that probably still don’t feel 100 per cent comfortable in their own skin at AFL level.
“So sometimes you’re just trying to get your own game in order, you’re not really worrying about – in those moments – helping other people through it.
“That’s an age thing and experience thing at times. So we need to fast track that absolutely, and we’ll continue to work on that.”
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
