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<\/p>\n
Matt Johnson was one of the three players to return, and speaking post-match he acknowledged how hard it is to get into this high-flying Fremantle line up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had one week off with the hammy \u2026 it was low grade, it was just on kicking I sort of felt it,\u201d Johnson told foxfooty.com.au.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was touch and go to play against North but having the bye gave me time to be 100%.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve played some good footy this year \u2013 more consistent but (I\u2019m) always looking to improve.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a testament to the strength and conditioning staff \u2013 everyone is available, everyone is fit. Those who come in are playing a super role. It\u2019s a great problem to have.<\/p>\n
Matt Johnson (right) was one of three inclusions for Thursday night\u2019s clash.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cThe blokes that went out for me this week, they couldn\u2019t have been more supportive.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving the love of the playing group and the belief that they\u2019ve got in me makes it really easy to go out and trust myself. It\u2019s really nice to have their support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even coach Justin Longmuir said the omitted players \u201cadded energy\u201d to the group despite their personal disappointment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s some players who were really stiff to miss out tonight that will go back and improve their footy at Peel and wait for the opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tough \u2013 they are hard conversations for me to have, but they are harder for the player to hear.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think sometimes players realised that they are in the team because of injury \u2013 that\u2019s maybe the case with Oscar. He\u2019s come in and done a really good job. But he probably knew he got his opportunity because of injury and Coxy (Brennan Cox) comes back. The other two that missed out, they were stiff.<\/p>\n
Alex Pearce leads the Dockers off in AFL game 150.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve both been playing their roles really well \u2013 but we\u2019ve got a lot of players through the middle of the ground performing. And a lot of players on our list who are playing really good footy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good position to be in as a club\u2026 but some of those players had to swallow a tough one.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes when you get left out of the team when you think you shouldn\u2019t, you can take some energy away from the group. But if anything they added energy with a real mature response.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure they\u2019ll go out and play well and be ready when an opportunity presents.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dropped trio have played 372 AFL games between them, with O\u2019Meara\u2019s 204 to date the most. <\/p>\n
Johnson said he felt the club was \u201cin a good headspace\u201d after their record 13th straight win, and \u201cjust in a groove\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery one knew what they had to do on the bye in terms of keeping our run load up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have a break and reset mentally.<\/p>\n
\u201cJL\u2019s big thing is we want to go 1-0 every week \u2026 that\u2019s all we really think about.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just a fun environment. Everyone gets on.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one big group that\u2019s connected and very driven for a common goal. I love coming to the footy club every day … We\u2019re all really invested in this club and where it\u2019s going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fremantle are the envy of their AFL rivals, not only sitting on top of the table but with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745474,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-745473","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-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745473","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=745473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}