http://heraldsun.com.au/footy/common/story_page/0,8033,6737214%5E20322,00.html
Freo fights back, on and off the field
12 July 2003 AFL
by TREVOR GRANT
SLOWLY, Fremantle is emerging from the fog of perpetual failure.
Mentor: Peter Bell says there's no egos in the Dockers group.
Like one of those huge container ships down at the docks, Western Australia's much-maligned second AFL club is gradually turning around. At a place where you could smell mediocrity the moment you walked through the door, the air is now filled with youthful vigour and buoyant expectation.
Where there was once derision at every turning for players at this club, there is now eager acceptance and, dare I say it, respect. Players no longer mumble into their soup and change the subject when asked in polite company over dinner what they do for a living.
It's almost reached the stage where you can wear your purple, green, white and red Freo jumper in the streets of Perth and no one will laugh.
Indeed, it's becoming the height of fashion to follow the Dockers.
Crowds that averaged 21,000 a year ago are now at 30,000, the club is trading profitably and, after a $4 million sponsorship injection this week, expects to eliminate its mountain of debt by the end of next season.
It has just come off the biggest win in its history, rallying from three goals behind in the last quarter to beat the reigning premier, Brisbane. Today the club enters more unexplored territory when it meets last year's beaten grand finalist, Collingwood, at the MCG before what is expected to be the largest crowd in its nine-year history.
Led by a chirpy little Victorian who has staked his future on a coaching philosophy that embraces sports science as no other team boss before him has done, Fremantle is on the ride of its short life. And all involved are strapped in, and hanging on to their hats, as they look ahead and see the horizon clearly for the first time.
One man who cannot get enough of it is captain Peter Bell, who knows more about the misery that goes with being a Docker than anyone else, having started his career there in its inaugural year, 1995.
"We are beginning to see progress. When you get a little progress, you want more," Bell says. "I think most of all the guys are hungry. They are sick and tired of being kicked in the guts."
From Idi Amin to Aaron Sandilands
PAT Watson, 66, is standing on the side watching over his boys, as he's done for 47 years as a property steward, first at East Perth and, since 1995, at Fremantle. He's seen it all in his time, right back to the days when the Empire Games came to Perth in 1962 and he was rostered as the masseur for the Ugandan boxing team.
His most memorable "rub" was the manager, a bloke named Idi Amin who went on to make his name beyond the boxing tent. "All I remember was that he was bloody big bugger, a mass of flesh," he says.
Today, as usual on a Tuesday morning, Watson is at the soon-to-be demolished Perry Lakes Stadium, where they held those Games, but he's not looking back. No one does at Fremantle any more.
How could you when you watch the likes of the young giant, Aaron Sandilands, move through his paces with the swift surety of a midfielder?
They run in three different groups at this session, which includes a 400m run, three 150m runs and six 80m sprints, all done on the track in spikes at 100 per cent. It's hard and it's radical, especially when you consider they do it every week during the season and will have a normal training run in the afternoon.
It is designed by fitness coach Adam Larcom to build durability into the body over the long term. "My job is not just about getting the likes of Matthew Pavlich faster, it's about keeping him highly durable," he says.
So far so good. Fremantle lost fewest games to injury in the competition last year. And it remains in a similar position this season.
Larcom, a disciple of Hawthorn running coach Bohdan Babijczuk, forms a critical arm of coach Chris Connolly's sports science strategy. Another is Kevin Ball, who is the only bio-mechanist employed full-time at an AFL club.
If Larcom is Connolly's right hand, maximising the athletic qualities of the players, Ball is his left hand, working on a scientific improvement in the kicking and tackling skills of each player. "I could have another coach who's been an ex-player, but I think you've got to become more specialist in the key disciplines. We've got to do it better in all areas," said Connolly, who added that his longevity in the job probably depended more on Larcom and Ball than anyone else in the club.
It will also depend on the development of players such as Sandilands, the 211cm, 20-year-old ruckman who's made a big impact in his rookie year.
Today, as he moves towards the end of his 80m sprint session with midfielder Shaun McManus, the lactic acid catches up with him. He stands to the side and vomits copiously, bent over like a giraffe trying to peck grass.
He's not the first victim today. Defender Antoni Grover, a 51sec 400m runner, was doing the same thing an hour earlier while busting a gut to outdo the likes of the supremely gifted Pavlich.
"It happens all the time," says McManus. "We try not to look because if you do, you're liable to go out in sympathy."
Soon enough Sandilands is back on track, displaying the awesome stride and running power that the Dockers see as a critical factor in his future development.
"I think he's unique. He's running with one of best midfield runners and staying with him. I don't think we've exploited this in games yet. He is a real weapon of the future," Larcom said.
I love you, Peter Bell
CONNOLLY begins the first meeting of the week by reading out e-mails from supporters.
One is from Belinda Schammer, mother of 18-year-old Byron, whose late goal helped win the match and assured the richly talented rookie of growing prominence. The coach prompts uproarious laughter as he reads out the note: "Please lock my boy up. Please keep his feet on the ground."
Everyone is taken by Schammer, the fresh-faced South Australian country kid from Tony Modra's home town, Loxton.
Captain Peter Bell is his hero. But this is no ordinary hero worship. "Byron follows him in every way," says Larcom. "He came to us pre-season over summer as a 17-year-old. He's been at me since then every week wanting to know the latest figures on how fast Peter Bell runs, how strong he is and what his jumping is like. He just adores Peter Bell. He's God to him."
Even pre-match he copies his warm-up. Bell throws two tennis balls against the wall and catches each one in each hand at the same time for three minutes in a routine to sharpen his reflexes.
Players and trainers fell about when Schammer started copying him, but kept missing the ball. Then when Bell finished his pre-game yoga stretches, Schammer asked politely if he could use his yoga mat. "The time will come no doubt when he'll go straight past me and I'll be copying his warm-ups," Bell said.
Spend a few days in the midst of this team and one thing hits you. The spirit of togetherness. From Bell down to Schammer, they work with the same sense of unity and purpose. "There's no egos in this group. It's tied in the age (average 22) and the fact we've had so little success," Bell says.
Typically, when the father of 21-year-old Aboriginal defender Dion Woods died last month, the entire team rallied around him.
"About 19-20 players went to the funeral. I think it showed him how much they cared for him and maybe taught him that he really belongs here," says Larcom, who, as with everyone else, warmly welcomes the shy youngster back into the fold this week.
Woods forms part of perhaps the most unique multicultural mix in footy. He is one of seven Aborigines in this team, a richly talented group affectionately known as "the brothers" and one that created history when they all played together earlier in the season.
An Aboriginal supporter at training asks them to be in a photo. They happily oblige, and for good measure the team's resident Croat, Pavlich, jumps in the middle.
"There's a great cultural flavour here," says Pavlich. "We've also got Paul Medhurst and Peter Bell with Asian backgrounds and Trent Croad and Ben Cunningham, who were born in New Zealand. It becomes a binding factor. I suppose it sums up Australia today."
Coach Connolly finds the whole thing a real buzz. "We're a melting pot of race, religion and talent, all with a common goal and led by South Korea's finest," he says with pride.
One day we'll have our own Bob Rose
CONNOLLY has a booming voice for a small man. But he uses tone and inflection extremely well to make his points to his players. His training in the classroom – he was a teacher for 10 years – is put to good use at team meetings.
He knows there's no greater turn-off than listening to the same carping voice day in, day out.
"We attacked the corridor, we owned the corridor in the last quarter, forcing them (Brisbane) wide many times. Our crash-tackling was outstanding. They've got a lot of seasoned bodies," he tells the players during a video review of the Brisbane victory.
He highlights Paul Hasleby's last-quarter encounter with Brisbane's Chris Scott, in which the Lion goes down in a tackle. "You are developing your power. It's a great effort to knock over Chris Scott," he says.
Then he turns to Schammer and that last-quarter goal that helped seal the win. "A great crumbing goal, Byron. It's a good example of the composure of our younger players compared to theirs," he says. "The stakes were high for Brisbane in this game. We knew they had a players' function with wives and girlfriends last week to paint a picture for the rest of the season."
Now there's a blot on that picture. He praises Paul Medhurst for his persistence on a day when the ball had passed him by. "He was head-butting a brick wall all day. Then in the last seven minutes a window opened and he kicked two goals. He was positive all the way through even when taken from the ground. That's the huge improvement for him," Connolly says.
If there are two persistent negatives in the public sphere, they are the highly visible and highly remunerated duo of Trent Croad and Jeff Farmer.
On Farmer, who has kicked only 14 goals in 11 matches, Connolly is extremely positive. "People in the media have ridiculed him. I can't understand why. He's had a very good season. He's always got an enormous amount of defensive pressure on him and he's still creating and kicking goals and being very good defensively," he says.
On Croad, dropped for the first time this week, he said he's being forced into a lesser role by the emerging youngsters around him. "It's tough. People expect him to be the Warren Tredrea of this team. He's not. But I think he's pretty realistic about where he's at. If he wasn't, he'd be derailing the place by kicking up against the coaching staff. But he's not. He's working as hard as he can to improve," Connolly says.
Quickly switching focus from Brisbane to Collingwood, he reminds players to prepare for anything and everything, including the usual physical intimidation and trash talk.
"Collingwood track the opposition better than any other team in the competition, equal with us," he says.
Throughout the video reviews of the Magpies, he focuses on Nathan Buckley's defensive sweeping away from the pack, Josh Fraser's "fantastic second efforts" and Shane O'Bree as "a player who can get under your guard".
He points to the loss of highly skilled defender James Clement. "It's a significant loss. They would be concerned," he says. He also tells his players to be aware that close-to-goal defender Simon Prestigiacomo is not fully recovered from his ankle injury and wouldn't enjoy being run about.
There's also venues. "Think about it," he implores them. "These guys have played in the vacuum of Telstra Dome for two weeks while we've been down in the cold and rain of Launceston and wind of Subiaco. We should be better mentally prepared for the conditions at the MCG on Saturday."
They know the death of Bob Rose will provide great impetus for Collingwood. As well, Connolly, forever the educator, wants his players to know and understand the meaning of the Rose legend. He hands each player a copy of a Herald Sun story on him and asks them "to take it home and absorb it" before Saturday.
"They'll be celebrating one of their greats. The place could be full. It's a great opportunity for the Fremantle Football Club. One day, hopefully, we'll have our own Bob Rose," he says.
Taking the message to the Magpies
YOU can't even take a pee at Fremantle without being reminded of the need for professionalism.
Above the urinal in the players' toilet is a quote from Australian tennis great Rod Laver. It reads, in part: "When I was a kid I let too many opponents off the hook . . . I found out that you have to play with the intention of doing the job quickly and thoroughly. When you have the opportunity, you strike."
On the notice board is the Herald Sun coverage of the David Neitz casino controversy. The booming headlines: "Demon Drink ... Is the pressure too much for this man?" reminds them about the dangers of public misadventure. The theme is awareness and improvement.
Ball points out the worrying statistic that their "good tackles" in away games are about 50 per cent down on home games. It's another sign that this team still has much to learn about maintaining intensity on the road, even if it has beaten the travel bogy this year by winning twice in Melbourne.
Connolly, constantly applying the long-term vision, has never tried to smother the problem in public. "People said to me, don't mention it. You'll make it an issue. I'm going to deal with it head-on," he said. "It's silly to think you can hide things from these players. Peter Bell, for example, is probably smarter than the entire match committee put together."
If nothing else, Connolly exudes pride in his players and his club. And he does so with a provocative gusto. "In many ways they treat us as the ugly step-sister of the AFL. We get left out of so many things," he said. "People knock our song, but at least it's fair-dinkum Australian, not a Pommie concoction or take-off of the French national anthem."
The most positive Freo article I have seen. Pity that we get better press over east that at home.
Freo fights back, on and off the field
12 July 2003 AFL
by TREVOR GRANT
SLOWLY, Fremantle is emerging from the fog of perpetual failure.
Mentor: Peter Bell says there's no egos in the Dockers group.
Like one of those huge container ships down at the docks, Western Australia's much-maligned second AFL club is gradually turning around. At a place where you could smell mediocrity the moment you walked through the door, the air is now filled with youthful vigour and buoyant expectation.
Where there was once derision at every turning for players at this club, there is now eager acceptance and, dare I say it, respect. Players no longer mumble into their soup and change the subject when asked in polite company over dinner what they do for a living.
It's almost reached the stage where you can wear your purple, green, white and red Freo jumper in the streets of Perth and no one will laugh.
Indeed, it's becoming the height of fashion to follow the Dockers.
Crowds that averaged 21,000 a year ago are now at 30,000, the club is trading profitably and, after a $4 million sponsorship injection this week, expects to eliminate its mountain of debt by the end of next season.
It has just come off the biggest win in its history, rallying from three goals behind in the last quarter to beat the reigning premier, Brisbane. Today the club enters more unexplored territory when it meets last year's beaten grand finalist, Collingwood, at the MCG before what is expected to be the largest crowd in its nine-year history.
Led by a chirpy little Victorian who has staked his future on a coaching philosophy that embraces sports science as no other team boss before him has done, Fremantle is on the ride of its short life. And all involved are strapped in, and hanging on to their hats, as they look ahead and see the horizon clearly for the first time.
One man who cannot get enough of it is captain Peter Bell, who knows more about the misery that goes with being a Docker than anyone else, having started his career there in its inaugural year, 1995.
"We are beginning to see progress. When you get a little progress, you want more," Bell says. "I think most of all the guys are hungry. They are sick and tired of being kicked in the guts."
From Idi Amin to Aaron Sandilands
PAT Watson, 66, is standing on the side watching over his boys, as he's done for 47 years as a property steward, first at East Perth and, since 1995, at Fremantle. He's seen it all in his time, right back to the days when the Empire Games came to Perth in 1962 and he was rostered as the masseur for the Ugandan boxing team.
His most memorable "rub" was the manager, a bloke named Idi Amin who went on to make his name beyond the boxing tent. "All I remember was that he was bloody big bugger, a mass of flesh," he says.
Today, as usual on a Tuesday morning, Watson is at the soon-to-be demolished Perry Lakes Stadium, where they held those Games, but he's not looking back. No one does at Fremantle any more.
How could you when you watch the likes of the young giant, Aaron Sandilands, move through his paces with the swift surety of a midfielder?
They run in three different groups at this session, which includes a 400m run, three 150m runs and six 80m sprints, all done on the track in spikes at 100 per cent. It's hard and it's radical, especially when you consider they do it every week during the season and will have a normal training run in the afternoon.
It is designed by fitness coach Adam Larcom to build durability into the body over the long term. "My job is not just about getting the likes of Matthew Pavlich faster, it's about keeping him highly durable," he says.
So far so good. Fremantle lost fewest games to injury in the competition last year. And it remains in a similar position this season.
Larcom, a disciple of Hawthorn running coach Bohdan Babijczuk, forms a critical arm of coach Chris Connolly's sports science strategy. Another is Kevin Ball, who is the only bio-mechanist employed full-time at an AFL club.
If Larcom is Connolly's right hand, maximising the athletic qualities of the players, Ball is his left hand, working on a scientific improvement in the kicking and tackling skills of each player. "I could have another coach who's been an ex-player, but I think you've got to become more specialist in the key disciplines. We've got to do it better in all areas," said Connolly, who added that his longevity in the job probably depended more on Larcom and Ball than anyone else in the club.
It will also depend on the development of players such as Sandilands, the 211cm, 20-year-old ruckman who's made a big impact in his rookie year.
Today, as he moves towards the end of his 80m sprint session with midfielder Shaun McManus, the lactic acid catches up with him. He stands to the side and vomits copiously, bent over like a giraffe trying to peck grass.
He's not the first victim today. Defender Antoni Grover, a 51sec 400m runner, was doing the same thing an hour earlier while busting a gut to outdo the likes of the supremely gifted Pavlich.
"It happens all the time," says McManus. "We try not to look because if you do, you're liable to go out in sympathy."
Soon enough Sandilands is back on track, displaying the awesome stride and running power that the Dockers see as a critical factor in his future development.
"I think he's unique. He's running with one of best midfield runners and staying with him. I don't think we've exploited this in games yet. He is a real weapon of the future," Larcom said.
I love you, Peter Bell
CONNOLLY begins the first meeting of the week by reading out e-mails from supporters.
One is from Belinda Schammer, mother of 18-year-old Byron, whose late goal helped win the match and assured the richly talented rookie of growing prominence. The coach prompts uproarious laughter as he reads out the note: "Please lock my boy up. Please keep his feet on the ground."
Everyone is taken by Schammer, the fresh-faced South Australian country kid from Tony Modra's home town, Loxton.
Captain Peter Bell is his hero. But this is no ordinary hero worship. "Byron follows him in every way," says Larcom. "He came to us pre-season over summer as a 17-year-old. He's been at me since then every week wanting to know the latest figures on how fast Peter Bell runs, how strong he is and what his jumping is like. He just adores Peter Bell. He's God to him."
Even pre-match he copies his warm-up. Bell throws two tennis balls against the wall and catches each one in each hand at the same time for three minutes in a routine to sharpen his reflexes.
Players and trainers fell about when Schammer started copying him, but kept missing the ball. Then when Bell finished his pre-game yoga stretches, Schammer asked politely if he could use his yoga mat. "The time will come no doubt when he'll go straight past me and I'll be copying his warm-ups," Bell said.
Spend a few days in the midst of this team and one thing hits you. The spirit of togetherness. From Bell down to Schammer, they work with the same sense of unity and purpose. "There's no egos in this group. It's tied in the age (average 22) and the fact we've had so little success," Bell says.
Typically, when the father of 21-year-old Aboriginal defender Dion Woods died last month, the entire team rallied around him.
"About 19-20 players went to the funeral. I think it showed him how much they cared for him and maybe taught him that he really belongs here," says Larcom, who, as with everyone else, warmly welcomes the shy youngster back into the fold this week.
Woods forms part of perhaps the most unique multicultural mix in footy. He is one of seven Aborigines in this team, a richly talented group affectionately known as "the brothers" and one that created history when they all played together earlier in the season.
An Aboriginal supporter at training asks them to be in a photo. They happily oblige, and for good measure the team's resident Croat, Pavlich, jumps in the middle.
"There's a great cultural flavour here," says Pavlich. "We've also got Paul Medhurst and Peter Bell with Asian backgrounds and Trent Croad and Ben Cunningham, who were born in New Zealand. It becomes a binding factor. I suppose it sums up Australia today."
Coach Connolly finds the whole thing a real buzz. "We're a melting pot of race, religion and talent, all with a common goal and led by South Korea's finest," he says with pride.
One day we'll have our own Bob Rose
CONNOLLY has a booming voice for a small man. But he uses tone and inflection extremely well to make his points to his players. His training in the classroom – he was a teacher for 10 years – is put to good use at team meetings.
He knows there's no greater turn-off than listening to the same carping voice day in, day out.
"We attacked the corridor, we owned the corridor in the last quarter, forcing them (Brisbane) wide many times. Our crash-tackling was outstanding. They've got a lot of seasoned bodies," he tells the players during a video review of the Brisbane victory.
He highlights Paul Hasleby's last-quarter encounter with Brisbane's Chris Scott, in which the Lion goes down in a tackle. "You are developing your power. It's a great effort to knock over Chris Scott," he says.
Then he turns to Schammer and that last-quarter goal that helped seal the win. "A great crumbing goal, Byron. It's a good example of the composure of our younger players compared to theirs," he says. "The stakes were high for Brisbane in this game. We knew they had a players' function with wives and girlfriends last week to paint a picture for the rest of the season."
Now there's a blot on that picture. He praises Paul Medhurst for his persistence on a day when the ball had passed him by. "He was head-butting a brick wall all day. Then in the last seven minutes a window opened and he kicked two goals. He was positive all the way through even when taken from the ground. That's the huge improvement for him," Connolly says.
If there are two persistent negatives in the public sphere, they are the highly visible and highly remunerated duo of Trent Croad and Jeff Farmer.
On Farmer, who has kicked only 14 goals in 11 matches, Connolly is extremely positive. "People in the media have ridiculed him. I can't understand why. He's had a very good season. He's always got an enormous amount of defensive pressure on him and he's still creating and kicking goals and being very good defensively," he says.
On Croad, dropped for the first time this week, he said he's being forced into a lesser role by the emerging youngsters around him. "It's tough. People expect him to be the Warren Tredrea of this team. He's not. But I think he's pretty realistic about where he's at. If he wasn't, he'd be derailing the place by kicking up against the coaching staff. But he's not. He's working as hard as he can to improve," Connolly says.
Quickly switching focus from Brisbane to Collingwood, he reminds players to prepare for anything and everything, including the usual physical intimidation and trash talk.
"Collingwood track the opposition better than any other team in the competition, equal with us," he says.
Throughout the video reviews of the Magpies, he focuses on Nathan Buckley's defensive sweeping away from the pack, Josh Fraser's "fantastic second efforts" and Shane O'Bree as "a player who can get under your guard".
He points to the loss of highly skilled defender James Clement. "It's a significant loss. They would be concerned," he says. He also tells his players to be aware that close-to-goal defender Simon Prestigiacomo is not fully recovered from his ankle injury and wouldn't enjoy being run about.
There's also venues. "Think about it," he implores them. "These guys have played in the vacuum of Telstra Dome for two weeks while we've been down in the cold and rain of Launceston and wind of Subiaco. We should be better mentally prepared for the conditions at the MCG on Saturday."
They know the death of Bob Rose will provide great impetus for Collingwood. As well, Connolly, forever the educator, wants his players to know and understand the meaning of the Rose legend. He hands each player a copy of a Herald Sun story on him and asks them "to take it home and absorb it" before Saturday.
"They'll be celebrating one of their greats. The place could be full. It's a great opportunity for the Fremantle Football Club. One day, hopefully, we'll have our own Bob Rose," he says.
Taking the message to the Magpies
YOU can't even take a pee at Fremantle without being reminded of the need for professionalism.
Above the urinal in the players' toilet is a quote from Australian tennis great Rod Laver. It reads, in part: "When I was a kid I let too many opponents off the hook . . . I found out that you have to play with the intention of doing the job quickly and thoroughly. When you have the opportunity, you strike."
On the notice board is the Herald Sun coverage of the David Neitz casino controversy. The booming headlines: "Demon Drink ... Is the pressure too much for this man?" reminds them about the dangers of public misadventure. The theme is awareness and improvement.
Ball points out the worrying statistic that their "good tackles" in away games are about 50 per cent down on home games. It's another sign that this team still has much to learn about maintaining intensity on the road, even if it has beaten the travel bogy this year by winning twice in Melbourne.
Connolly, constantly applying the long-term vision, has never tried to smother the problem in public. "People said to me, don't mention it. You'll make it an issue. I'm going to deal with it head-on," he said. "It's silly to think you can hide things from these players. Peter Bell, for example, is probably smarter than the entire match committee put together."
If nothing else, Connolly exudes pride in his players and his club. And he does so with a provocative gusto. "In many ways they treat us as the ugly step-sister of the AFL. We get left out of so many things," he said. "People knock our song, but at least it's fair-dinkum Australian, not a Pommie concoction or take-off of the French national anthem."
The most positive Freo article I have seen. Pity that we get better press over east that at home.
