Looking ahead with Fremantle

by NEIL BELFORD

WHEN you haven't won a game all year you can start taking consolation where you can get it. Fremantle comprehensively won the ruck against Essendon, with Simon Eastaugh providing solid support to an increasingly impressive Justin Longmuir.

Again Freo got away to a fast start against big name opposition but when the Waterhouse hamstring failed to meet the demands from the surface at Not Quite Right Stadium Essendon reorganised and shut the Dockers down - and then out.

Interesting as soon as Waterhouse left the ground so did Hird. There didn't seem to be much wrong with him, the temptation is to believe he was rested. The half back line that had been impregnable to that point, fell to bits when Pavlich was taken out of it, and it remained the weakest part of Fremantle's structure for the rest of the game. Good as he is on the half forward line, it seems to me that Pavlich should own centre half back for the indefinite future.

Ben Allan is coaching with confidence and from what I have seen so far, has a better grasp on the task than his predecessor. He could well be making a career, I get the impression he sees the rest of the season as an experiment both for himself and the Fremantle list.

It's fairly obvious the list is in for a substantial overhaul and while it has been a tradition here to keep the criticism in check, that tradition died with the last column. Highly paid hothouse flowers shouldn't be able to find a home at Fremantle - but in many cases they have. So far I have demoted McManus, he has so much courage you cant really turn the heat up too much, but the contradiction he poses to coach and selectors is a difficult one. The Essendon game exposed James Walker.

Throughout his short career he has been the sort of player who looks impressive until he gets the ball under pressure. He has the kicking skills of McManus without the ball getting ability. He, like a number of his team mates, has nine games to reconstruct himself.

The other half of the job is to find replacements - Fremantle is going to have to do a bit better than just drafting promising 18 year olds and hoping for the best . The standard response of football departments at struggling clubs is that you just cant find ready made players - but it's funny how a successful club like Carlton has made an artform of this. It's easy to say Fremantle should bring Jeff Farmer home, and I would love it if they could. But it is unlikely; so we need to look a bit harder for young quality players that for whatever reason, are currently marginalised.

While we are still at Melbourne, I remember Brent Grgic kicking two high-pressure match winning goals against us from 50. That is not a skill that is common at Fremantle oval. Grgic is a bit player at Melbourne, Daniher can't really fit him in, and when he does he plays him out of position in defence. But he has it all, skills, physique, football brain, and has youth on his side. He could certainly fill the hole left when you take Pavlich out of the half forward line and like Pavlich has the potential to become one of the game's champions.

Disclaimer