![\"Luke](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/bb17139627fc24a06d70b065bb26d2f4eae41bed.jpg\")
Camera IconLuke Jackson was one of Freo\u2019s best. Credit: Josh Chadwick\/Getty Images<\/p>\nFremantle has \u201csome work to do\u201d with a high-octane rotating midfield that caught Geelong off guard at times but struggled to find the right mix at others, says coach Justin Longmuir.<\/p>\n
As the Dockers grapple with how a 35-point second quarter lead turned into a 10-point defeat at GHMBA Stadium on Saturday, Longmuir said he had given players some licence to \u201cflip and rotate through there\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Cats were helpless at times in the first quarter when the Dockers put 52 points on the scoreboard and many of their midfielders swung through the forward 50 with Shai Bolton (two), Caleb Serong, Luke Jackson and Nathan O\u2019Driscoll all \u201cdual role\u201d players who kicked goals.<\/p>\n
Asked if the rotations had helped set up the early lead, Longmuir said: \u201cYeah, but we have got some work to do with that\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe centre bounce mix at times wasn\u2019t what we wanted but we\u2019ve given them a bit of a licence to flip and rotate through there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to make sure that when we do flip and rotate that we play the roles we are in and we lost that a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dockers used nine players at the centre ball-ups, including ruck pair Luke Jackson and Sean Darcy.<\/p>\n
Camera IconLuke Jackson was one of Freo\u2019s best. Credit: Josh Chadwick\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Andy Brayshaw attended 28 out of 34 centre contests, while Serong was next with 23. Hayden Young (16), Murphy Reid (14), Bolton (9) Matthew Johnson (6) and Neil Erasmus (2) were also deployed.<\/p>\n
Jackson was at 11 centre ball-ups as a ruck and 11 as a pure midfielder.<\/p>\n
Hybrid beast Jackson was among the Dockers\u2019 best, matched against Geelong\u2019s West Australian debutant Mitch Edwards. He finished with 22 hitouts, 10 clearances and a goal in a game that should attract Brownlow and coaches\u2019 votes, particularly now the umpires have access to stats.<\/p>\n
Fremantle won the centre clearance battled 17-11 and overall stoppage clearance 25-17, but couldn\u2019t translate it into a victory.<\/p>\n
The Dockers led 8.4 to 3.1 at quarter-time, winning the clearance battle and scoring from 75 per cent of forward entries.<\/p>\n
\u201cBang for buck\u201d is one of Longmuir\u2019s favourite terms and they got it in the first quarter, when they scored seven times from their first 10 inside-50s and delivered eight goals.<\/p>\n
The 8.4 (52) total at quarter time was the fifth-highest opening stanza in their history and their biggest against Geelong.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe jumped into the game really, really well and were able to maximise and get bang for buck with opportunities going forward in the first quarter,\u201d Longmuir said.<\/p>\n
![\"Justin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/d8c8439fcb08af29ce4a5aec679cb3940ef3c5a0.jpg\")
Camera IconJustin Longmuir. Credit: James Wiltshire\/AFL Photos\/AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cTo Geelong\u2019s credit I thought they changed the look of the game up, created a bit more length and tried to surge the ball more, which we didn\u2019t deal with well in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we still created opportunities back the other way and still were able to score but we didn\u2019t deal with it well.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd as the game wore on we couldn\u2019t deal with that and lost a bit of composure with ball in hand and our basics fell away and we succumbed to their pressure a bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the last quarter it was just a field position battle. We didn\u2019t handle the last quarter well at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a lot in that first quarter that looked like the team Longmuir wants playing for longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, I\u2019d love to kick 50 points a quarter,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe maximised our entries and caught Geelong on the hop a little bit in our forward half and won a lot of contests in our forward half which created scores.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are not going to score that much in a quarter (regularly), but the foundations of our game looked really good.\u201d<\/p>\n
The coach explained two interesting match-ups from the first bounce, with Heath Chapman heading to last year\u2019s Coleman medallist Jeremy Cameron. Brandon Walker – who typically gets the smaller forwards – was asked to guard Patrick Dangerfield, who had been under an injury cloud entering the game.<\/p>\n
Cameron missed round one of a calf and shoulder injury and grew into the game. He played 87 per cent of the game on the ground and kicked 3.4 with 11 score involvements.<\/p>\n
Dangerfield played 55 per cent of the game, kicked a goal and did not touch the ball in the second half but still put his imprimatur on the game as a deep forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cChappy has done it before and we want Walks to be able to play on those types of players,\u201d Longmuir said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe (Walker) has played most of his footy deep, mostly on the small forwards, but we\u2019ve tried to skill him up to play on the marking forwards a bit more.\u201d<\/p>\n
The coach said it felt like the one that got away but that was \u201ctaking a lit bit away from Geelong\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are up and lead at every break and we were disappointed with the way we handled the second half,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDisappointed with how we handled the last quarter. Didn\u2019t defend Geelong well enough and when we did create opportunities back the other way we just couldn\u2019t tie our work off.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe kicked 3.8 in the second half.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were some of those where when we won the contest in the corridor we dropped some uncontested marks in pretty dangerous areas which would have created opportunities and we just got a bit sloppy.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the way they were playing it left us really vulnerable back the other way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Dockers will be hopeful defender Brennan Cox returns from a calf complaint for Saturday\u2019s twilight game against Melbourne as Fremantle plays its first home game at Optus Stadium, while fellow backman Luke Ryan was selected for Peel Thunder in the WAFL but did not play due to illness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fremantle has \u201csome work to do\u201d with a high-octane rotating midfield that caught Geelong off guard at times…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541364,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,10124,588,85],"class_list":["post-541363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-fremantle-dockers","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}