{"id":98881,"date":"2025-08-27T05:12:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T05:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/98881\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T05:12:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T05:12:12","slug":"fremantle-coach-justin-longmuir-says-do-or-die-win-over-western-bulldogs-good-preparation-for-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/98881\/","title":{"rendered":"Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir says do-or-die win over Western Bulldogs good preparation for finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir believes the pressure on the Dockers heading into their first final in three years may actually be less than their do-or-die victory over Western Bulldogs last weekend.<\/p>\n

And if pressure makes diamonds, Longmuir is confident Fremantle\u2019s \u201cadaptable\u201d football that has been forged in the fires of several big games this season can hold up when September action begins.<\/p>\n

After their winner-takes-all, pseudo elimination final against the Bulldogs, the Dockers have the week off to rest weary bodies and prepare for an actual elimination final against either Gold Coast or Hawthorn.<\/p>\n

Longmuir is not worried by the identity of their opponent, to be determined after the Suns\u2019 Wednesday night clash with Essendon.<\/p>\n

But when it comes to handling the cauldron-like atmosphere of finals, the Fremantle coach believes his team\u2019s infal-round win over the Bulldogs, has already been steeled for the occasion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the final will be built up as much as that game. In some sense, the pressure will be less,\u201d Longmuir said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really proud of the way the players were able to stick to process, and by process I mean controlling the things we can control, and that\u2019s really what you need to do week-in, week-out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been weeks where all clubs haven\u2019t quite got that right, and we\u2019ve had a couple of weeks we would love back in terms of the product we\u2019ve put out on weekends, but we were able to reset and focus on us a fair bit last week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whoever the Dockers face in their first final since 2022, Longmuir is confident their best football can stand the test.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve been able to do is build a style of footy that is able to be adaptive to opposition we play against (and) game situation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve lost clearances at times this year, but we\u2019ve been able to rely on our ball movement. We\u2019ve won clearance and been able to lock the ball in and play a front half game.<\/p>\n

\"CoachCamera IconCoach Justin Longmuir at Dockers training Credit: Andrew Ritchie\/The West Australian<\/p>\n

\u201cDefence has, and in particular our backline, been strong all year and been able to hold up under pressure at times, especially against the better sides, as we saw on the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re building a style of footy that is flexible and adaptable to different weeks, different games, different quarters, in some sense. The maturity of the group and a bit more flexibility in the team has added to that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

But Longmuir said it was less a case of being able to change gears, and more so having the flexibility to adapt to what their opponents were throwing at them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just different ways of playing and opposition, week-in, week-out and quarter-in and quarter-out, offer you different opportunities and different challenges, and we\u2019ve been able to adapt well in game to those things,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"MELBOURNE,Camera IconMELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – AUGUST 24: Nat Fyfe of the Dockers and Justin Longmuir, Senior Coach of the Dockers celebrate in the rooms after winning the round 24 AFL match between Western Bulldogs and Fremantle Dockers at Marvel Stadium on August 24, 2025 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Robert Cianflone\/Getty Images) Credit: Robert Cianflone\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThe flexibility in our team with personnel, which we\u2019ve tried to work on over pre-season and throughout the year, has helped some of that. It\u2019s definitely helped, but it\u2019s probably not necessarily gears; it\u2019s all the flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fremantle kicked seven unanswered goals in the second quarter against the Bulldogs where they looked unstoppable as they charmed, sliced and dazzled their fellow finals contenders, moving the ball at breakneck speed to leave their opponents trailing in their wake.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, there were some things we needed to stop with their game, but it was largely based around us and this brand that we want to put out there and I was very proud of the players to be able to control what we could control,\u201d Longmuir said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgainst the good sides, the free-flying ball movement doesn\u2019t come into it as much, and it becomes about the contest a lot more, and we feel when we\u2019ve been able to bring teams into a contest and make it more of a contested game, we\u2019ve been able to thrive.<\/p>\n

\"CoachCamera IconCoach Justin Longmuir Credit: Andrew Ritchie\/The West Australian<\/p>\n

\u201cThat and the way we\u2019ve defended teams has really stood up against the better sides.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone wants to talk about ball movement and any scores we had from our back half on the weekend, but if you look at how a lot of those chains started, they start off the back of turning the ball over in good areas, end of contest.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get that right, your ball movement sometimes looks after itself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir believes the pressure on the Dockers heading into their first final in three years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,10124,588,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-98881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-fremantle-dockers","14":"tag-sport","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98881","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=98881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}