Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir has declared he always knew his team had the fitness, belief and courage to overcome a 19-point deficit during the final quarter after they stormed home to beat Hawthorn by 15 points at Optus Stadium.
The Dockers’ seven-game winning streak looked over when Jack Gunston kicked his sixth goal at the 11-minute mark of the final term, but Fremantle showed an incredible ability to ignore their three six-day breaks in a row and ran over the top of the Hawks.
“Of course I can believe it. I’m not sure why I wouldn’t,” Longmuir said.
“We’ve found ourselves in similar situations over the last 18 months and found a way. We got a couple of things wrong, especially in that second quarter but I thought it was still a pretty even contest at half-time
“The inside 50s were pretty similar and there were similar scoring shots. We missed a couple of shots that we would have liked to kick. There was probably one thing in the game we were letting ourselves down with.
“We tidied that up and from the middle of the third quarter, we dominated field position and we just needed that one goal to get the crowd excited.
“I thought that if we could get that one goal, the dam wall would break with the amount of field position we were having. I’m just incredibly proud of the players, whom I just told them.
“To have four games in 18 days, and back-to-back-to-back six day breaks – I didn’t hear any players talking whinging about how sore they were. They just got to work. Win, lose a draw tonight, I thought we prepared really well. That’s on the players.
“We’re fit. The fitness staff have done an amazing job to get us to a level where we didn’t look like the tiredest team out there, given the back to back to back six day breaks.”
The Dockers now have an extended break before facing Essendon at the MCG next Sunday where they will attempt to equal the club’s record nine wins in a row.
The squad had been given the entire weekend off to recover and won’t be expected back at the club until Monday.
“We’ll have the weekend off. They’ve deserved it,” Longmuir said.
“.Let’s sit in this and enjoy what they’ve done. And that’s a big part of what we do. When I say we are process orientated and prepare for every team, part of that is sitting in wins or losses.
“It’s a hard game, so you’ve got to celebrate the wins along the way, otherwise it a bit of a boring caper. So they’re going to celebrate it, sit in it and we’ll get together on Monday and go through our preparation again.”