Fremantle head coach Justin Longmuir has conceded his entire football club will be “questioning themselves” after a brutal 61-point defeat to St Kilda on Friday night.
Now sitting at 4-4 with a very tough fixture heading into their mid-season bye, the Dockers are stuck in the middle of no-mans land, and looked a completely different side at Marvel Stadium to the one that beat Adelaide in Perth on Anzac Day.
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Speaking to journalists in his post-game press conference, Longmuir lamented his side’s inconsistency after a loss that ends their run of four wins from five outings.
“(We’re) disappointed, it was not the performance we wanted to put out there, clearly,” Longmuir began by saying.
“We thought we had a good week, we thought we were really clear on what we needed to do, and we just didn’t get any of those ‘focuses’ that we went into the game with, done. They played with a higher intensity, which we didn’t deal with. We were really disappointing.”
Among the key Fremantle cogs to underdeliver were Caleb Serong and Andrew Brayshaw, who were incredibly restricted to just 33 disposals between them in an ultra-uncharacteristic performance.
With their output nullified, St Kilda mauled the Dockers at clearance to lose the count 22-50. The loss is even more staggering, when the fact that St Kilda were -39 in clearances collectively over the last fortnight against GWS and the Western Bulldogs.
Excluding the Covid-impacted season of 2020 with shortened quarters, Fremantle’s final score of 5.3 (33) was their equal-seventh in their history, and the equal-third least amount of scores for a match (eight).
“They did a good job to lock down Caleb and Andy. When we supported the contest, their half-backs got involved,” Longmuir continued.
“(I) thought they supported the contest well with their forwards, which emptied out our back line a little bit. We didn’t handle their surge game off that. We just couldn’t get anything proactive going all night.
“We got smoked around clearance, but we (also) got beaten both sides of the ball as well. Ground ball is a key indicator for them, and they just beat us at that all night.”
Saints down Dockers by 61 points | 03:27
It’s not unreasonable to say that Fremantle are yet to put together four, strong consecutive quarters of football together so far this season, and it’s cost them valuable premiership points against the likes of Sydney (Round 2) and Melbourne (Round 6) that now leave them scrambling after eight games.
And with the club’s next four matches against Collingwood, GWS (away), Port Adelaide and Gold Coast (away), tonight’s loss leaves the ‘Purple Haze’ with absolutely no room for inconsistency if they’re any chance of making a tilt for September after their mid-season bye.
What their volatility comes down to isn’t 100 per cent clear, but their head coach believes it’s more likely behaviour than anything else.
“I’m concerned about our consistency, absolutely. Whether that’s emotional… I think it’s more on behaviour. But when we get challenged early in games, I’m not sure we’re up for the fight,” explained Longmuir.
“Clearly, our consistency has not been where it needs to be (in the) early part of the season. The main message after the game to the players was: ‘Are we up for the challenge that an AFL season confronts us with?’ Because we can’t be that team that has the high highs, and the low lows.
“My job, and the club’s job, is to make sure we put a consistent performance out each week. I understand our fans will be really disappointed; we’re really disappointed, but we’re going to work our backsides off to become a more consistent team that can produce our top end footy more regularly.
“I think we were well prepared for St Kilda tonight. Nothing in the week — and I’ll think about it a little bit more, it’s still fresh — but nothing in the week gave me alarm bells that we were going to walk into this game thinking it was easy.”
A hamstring injury to midfielder Hayden Young before half time soured the night even further for the visitors, succumbing to his third injury of the muscle in as many months.
The Dockers have made finals just once under Longmuir in his five full seasons at the helm, and leaves him the hot seat more in the hot seat than his coaching counterparts across the league.
The 44-year-old transparently admitted that everyone at his club will be assessing their output before preparing for next week’s date with the Magpies on home soil with a six-day break.
“I think everyone at the football club at the moment should be questioning themselves. The first thing I look at after a performance like that, as any good leader should, is: ‘What did I get wrong?’,” Longmuir said.
“I’m not sitting here blaming the players; I’ve got to look at my own performance this week, and (ask): ‘Am I contributing to us being an inconsistent team?’ So of course I’m going to question myself. You can’t you sit here and say it’s all on the players.”
Both Bailey Banfield and Patrick Voss will be available for their Thursday night clash next week, after serving their respective suspensions.
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