January 13, 2010

The Dockers can improve in 2010...

FREMANTLE made the preliminary final in 2006 under Chris Connolly. He didn’t last another season and three disappointing years have followed.
The Dockers finished 14th in 2009 and it’s fair to say they’re seen as a bit of a joke by many. Recruiting gaffs and a lack of success are highlighted with some justification. Since Fremantle came into the competition in 1995 each of the other non-Victorian clubs has won a premiership and the Dockers are in a sorry group with Collingwood, St Kilda, Melbourne, Richmond and the Western Bulldogs who haven’t.
In 2009 Fremantle put in a couple of performances worthy of joke status – in round 15 they kicked one goal against Adelaide at Football Park and in round 20 they were thrashed by the hopeless Melbourne at the MCG.
But still there’s a feeling of optimism among supporters. Are they mad or do they really have a reason to believe?
One reason for optimism is youth – 11 Fremantle players made their AFL debuts in 2009. Two of them, Stephen Hill (22 games) and Greg Broughton (15), finished in the top 10 of the club fairest and best award and Nick Suban also played all 22 games.
The team has two genuine A-grade players, Mattthew Pavlich and Aaron Sandilands, and despite all sorts of talk (admittedly much of it from Channel Nine’s misfiring Garry Lyon) both seem destined to be one-club players. That, and the return to the club via the pre-season draft of Adam McPhee, suggests a positive culture despite the lack of success.
It’s worth looking back to 2006 in any consideration of where a Freo revival might come from. Half the players from the preliminary final have gone but what that team achieved was the ability to play with sustained intensity and to win away from home.
On a whiteboard somewhere at Fremantle Oval there will be a list of the things coach Mark Harvey and his team must achieve, or at least show they’re on the way to achieving, if he is to keep his job. In his favour is the fact that Roger Hayden, Michael Johnson, Rhys Palmer and Ryan Crowley will all be back after missing most of 2010
1. Win away. Harvey must put an end to his team’s pathetic away record. The Dockers haven’t won at Docklands since 2006 but they play there six times in 2010. Often the team looks unprepared on the road and yet they travel every second week so should know at much about playing far from home as anyone.
2. Win the ball. Fremantle must continue to improve at stoppages and gain value from the dominance Sandilands almost always exerts.
3. Score. Goals win matches and the Dockers found scoring difficult in 2009: they scored more than 100 points just five times and in five games got less than 10 goals. The switch of gun recruit Chris Tarrant to defence and the club’s greatest goal scorer Pavlich to the midfield had an inevitable impact. Tarrant seems happier as a backman and should stay there but Pavlich must return to attack and with youngsters Chris Mayne and Hayden Ballantyne could form something quite potent. Des Headland, surely on his last chance, has great appeal as a forward and if Sandilands starts kicking goals he’ll move into Brownlow territory.

• Aaron Sandilands is Fremantle’s big hope and he’s all signed up. Photo by Daniel Wilkins. The Slattery Media Group.

• StumbleUpon
• Digg it
• Furl
• Yahoo! MyWeb
• Newsvine
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Delicious
• Kwoff

Print