By Justin Chadwick
Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir is confident his team can match Collingwood’s chaos in Saturday night’s semi-final at the MCG, but avoiding another horror start is a must.
The Dockers came from 41 points down to beat the Western Bulldogs by 13 points in last week’s elimination final in Perth.
David Mundy in action for the Dockers during Fremantle’s massive come-from-behind victory over the Western Bulldogs in last week’s elimination final.Credit:Getty Images
It continued a trend of poor starts from Fremantle, who have won nine games this season after trailing at quarter time.
In the round-23 win over GWS, Fremantle trailed by 31 points midway through the second quarter before triumphing by 20 points.
Longmuir said it was important to avoid another poor start in front of a pro-Collingwood crowd of about 90,000 people on Saturday night.
“We reviewed (the poor start against the Bulldogs) pretty heavily. We don’t want to be in that situation,” Longmuir said.
“We need to get our contest work a lot better, and need to execute the basics under pressure a lot better than we did early in the game.
“I don’t know whether it was stage fright. But we definitely didn’t handle the pressure that they brought and that led to not getting the basics and execution right.
“We need to be able to buffer the opposition’s pressure a lot better than that.”
Collingwood’s fast-paced, free-wheeling style has wowed fans this season, with many labelling it as chaotic.
The stats show Fremantle are a more controlled team.
But Longmuir believes Fremantle have the ability to match Collingwood’s chaos, especially with small forwards like Michael Walters, Michael Frederick, Lachie Schultz and Sam Switkowski roaming at ground level.
“Make it what you want and call it what you want, but I think we can play a chaos brand and I think we play our best footy when we play like that sometimes,” Longmuir said.
“A lot of our scoring opportunities last week came off the back of trusting the contest ahead of the play and our small forwards getting to work in a chaotic sort of brand as well.
“I think we can score that way and when we’re playing our best footy it’s off the back off our elite pressure and run from our small forwards that bring that chaotic look as well.”
AAP
