Excerpt from Gary Buckenara’s assessment of where we are at from an article that is on the Herald Sun web site. Only bit I disagree with is Lee Spurr coming back in. Aged 31, I’d expect one of the recent draftees will take his place.
FREMANTLE
Buckenara says: It’s been an interesting season so far for Fremantle and they’re probably around where I thought they’d be in terms of win-loss ratio. They are in a bit of a rebuilding phase, but coach Ross Lyon continues to mix youth with experience and isn’t just playing youngsters for the sake of it. They need to earn AFL games at the Dockers.
Fremantle has been really hard to beat at home but have struggled in away games, so that win over Carlton at Etihad Stadium, without Nat Fyfe and Aaron Sandilands, was massive although the loss to Brisbane last weekend was a step backwards. The injuries to Stephen and Bradley Hill has knocked them around a bit because they bring such speed and class to the midfield and actually, the Dockers have a really deep and damaging midfield when those guys are playing and combining with Fyfe and Neale and taking some of the load of youngsters like Andrew Brayshaw, Adam Cerra and Bailey Banfield. I like the defensive mix with Joel Hamling, who has really found his feet now in that team, Alex Pearce has been really good and Luke Ryan has stepped up, while Nathan Wilson provides great drive off halfback and when Lee Spurr comes back from injury he’ll add to that. It’s the forward line that has really struggled, again. McCarthy hasn’t delivered on his potential, Kersten is now being played in defence and Taberner showed some signs before getting injured but is he going to be a star? It’s the missing link. Lyon should play the kids he’s not sure about in the last part of the season to find out if they can play at the level.