By Justin Chadwick
Fremantle chief executive Simon Garlick is confident the AFL club is well placed for a sustained period of success, but warns there could be some bumps along the way.
The Dockers ended their six-year finals drought last season and enter 2023 boasting one of the competition’s most exciting young lists.
Fremantle are yet to select a new captain after Nat Fyfe stepped aside, but Caleb Serong (centre) is a contender if the team opts for a younger leader.Credit:Getty Images
Although Griffin Logue (North Melbourne), Rory Lobb (Bulldogs) and David Mundy (retirement) departed at the end of last season, the additions of former Demons ruckman Luke Jackson and ex-Hawk Jaeger O’Meara have offset those losses.
The return to full fitness of two-time Brownlow medallist Nat Fyfe also looms as a major weapon for the Dockers.
Fremantle unleashed an ambitious plan 15 months ago that set themselves the goal of winning at least one AFL flag by 2025 and achieving three top-four finishes in that time.
Garlick believes the club is well placed to give that ambitious target a red-hot crack.
“We think we’re really well positioned for an extended period of contention,” Garlick told reporters at the club’s season launch on Wednesday.
“We’d be certainly very disappointed if we didn’t get to the level that we achieved last year (as a minimum), and hopefully beyond.
“I certainly feel like we’re better positioned than we were 12 months ago to continue to progress.
“But having said that, there’s so much precedence for clubs who have ended up being sustainably successful and have won premierships – but the path to that status wasn’t a linear one.
“There can be bumps in the road. Sometimes you can regress or stagnate, and this competition has seen that many times.
“So we’re really mindful of the fact that can occur. But there’s no limit on what we can achieve this year.”
Garlick said that Fremantle’s next captain would be unveiled before Friday’s practice match against Adelaide.
Alex Pearce and Andrew Brawshaw are the two main contenders to replace Fyfe, while 22-year-old Caleb Serong is also in the mix if the Dockers opt for a younger leader.
Meanwhile, the Dockers have announced that they will be known as the Walyalup Football Club for future games played during Sir Doug Nicholls and AFLW Indigenous Rounds.
The renaming has been in the works for the past two years and follows in the footsteps of Melbourne, who played as the Narrm Football Club in 2022.
Walyalup –the Indigenous name for the area of Fremantle – means place of the Walyo or Woylie, a small brush-tailed bettong or kangaroo rat.
