Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir has lamented the AFL’s “brutal” fixture that forced the Dockers to endure a month away from home fans.
Speaking after the shock 37-point Western Derby loss to cross-town rivals West Coast, Longmuir said his side were “smoked” by an Eagles outfit who were just “too good”.
“It’s a brutal season. The fixtures are brutal. Throws up some of these results sometimes,” he said.
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“We’re looking forward to getting home in front of our home crowd next week. Two home games in six rounds is a tough fixture.
“We’ve been away from our home crowd for four of the six weeks so it’s been a pretty long stretch.
“It’ll be a month since the Adelaide game by next week – I’m not sure too many other teams have had to do that across the start of the season.”
Longmuir is the second coach in a matter of days to question the AFL’s fixture in the early stages of 2024 after St Kilda mentor Ross Lyon shared his concerns.
Lyon described the Saints’ tough schedule of three games in 11 days as “mitigating circumstances” which contributed to their heavy loss on Thursday night.
“We were a little bit worried coming here, the demands of the game … I don’t want to use excuses, but I certainly came here and I was cautious, and I flagged in the pre-game interview that it was our second four-day prep,” Lyon said after his side’s loss to the Western Bulldogs on Thursday night.
But Longmuir refused to accept his side’s loss was due to two tight away defeats in back-to-back weeks.
“Not going to sit here and use that as an excuse – I thought we had a good week’s prep. We got beaten by what we prepared for,” he said.
The Fremantle coach, who signed a new deal at the start of the season, said inaccuracy cost his side dearly in the opening term and from there, the Dockers “weren’t good enough”.
“I thought we started well … then got no reward for effort early,” he said.
“Probably from the 20-minute mark of the first quarter for about two and a half quarters we got smoked in the contest.
“In front of the ball, they smoked us. Led us to the ball.
“Their pressure was too good. We let ‘em walk out the front.”
“We weren’t good enough to handle it … We’ve got to be better than that.
“A lot went wrong.
“We just went into our shells.
“We haven’t been taking our opportunity in front of goal and that bit us on the backside tonight. We should have had a bit more scoreboard pressure early.”
Former Docker Matthew Pavlich said Fremantle “completely lost” their structure after quarter time as the Eagles piled on 10 goals to four.
“Fremantle have been very good this year at stopping the opposition from turnover but tonight they’ve been absolutely sieved going the other way,” he said.
“Their game plan isn’t build around chaos and quick ball movement from the back half. They like to build the ball up.
“To change that mid game (against the Eagles) is almost impossible.”
Fremantle managed six final quarter goals to add some respectability to the scoreboard, after letting the margin blow out to 58 points in the third term.
The Dockers have now slipped outside of the top eight, off the back of a third straight loss.
