Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir says there may be nonetheless lots to play for this season, regardless of a fourth successive loss confirming finals are formally out of attain.
The Dockers sit in lowly fifteenth place forward of a visit to Geelong, whereas Sydney is now only one win exterior the eight after Last evening’s 29-point victory at Optus Stadium.
“Judging by this week it is not going to be a big challenge for me to motivate the players. They were really good this week. Hungry, driving group, driving standards,” Longmuir stated.
“They are really invested and motivated to finish the year off really well.
“We still have a lot we can get out of the season. I don’t get a sense that any player has given up.
“As far as personnel goes we will just keep rewarding the guys in good form. We can’t get much younger.
“You don’t get any luxuries from not going 100 per cent at AFL football.”
The Dockers’ coach conceded a 12-minute interval within the first quarter price his staff – they’ve received solely two opening phrases this season.
“I thought we started well with the right intent. Probably the first five minutes. Then there was a 12-minute period where we cost ourselves five goals in the first quarter,” he stated.
“We need to get on top of that. You can concede goals, it just can’t be five in 12 minutes where you touch the ball 15 times and they touch it 45 times.
“They had total control of the game for a period and it hurts you on the scoreboard.
“But we played a style of footy that will hold us in good stead going forward than what we have the last few weeks.
“Last week it was a whole quarter (against Collingwood), I don’t think it was a whole quarter this week.”
The Dockers’ ball motion was quicker, although not essentially slicker, as they let themselves down with disposal errors and missed targets in assault.
But Longmuir stated it was a step in the proper path.
“We want to tie our work off a lot better going forward,” he stated.
“There were a lot of basic execution that let us down, whether it was ball handling, to receive or just our ability to finish it off inside 50 when a lot of the time we had clear targets to go to and sometimes really wide open targets and we just didn’t tie our work off.
“But as far as executing roles and having a more fierce intent we took a step forward this week versus the last few weeks.
“Our ability to trust ourselves with ball in hand and drive and use those roles and numbers was a lot better.
“We just need to get to work on the execution part.”
He stated the Dockers will look to play a faster model for the rest of the season.
“When we play our best footy we play that brand,” he stated.
“We got back to defending our front half a lot better, especially in the second half. I think they went end to end once in the second half out of 24-25 opportunities.
“When you defend well and pressure well you create the opportunities going back the other way.
“I know that is the way we want to play and when we have played our best footy this season, the game has looked like that.
“The difference in the game was probably a bit of class. They were able to execute a lot better and make the most of their opportunities going forward.
“Every time we would get ourselves back into the game they would have the class to win a centre bounce and win a couple of contests and connect inside 50 and always held us at arm’s length.”
Longmuir praised Luke Jackson, who had 43 hitouts in first-choice ruckman Sean Darcy’s absence.
“I thought he was good. He played his role well. I thought he competed in the air, at ground level and got a bit of his mojo going around the ground as the game wore on,” Longmuir stated.
“We went with a different structure tonight than when Sean was missing last time. I thought Corbs (Josh Corbett) gave us some decent contests ahead of the ball when he had to, and brought it to ground, created some opportunities himself as well.
“We will keep tinkering with personnel but I think that structure is a better structure for us.”
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
