FREMANTLE assistant coach Chris Scott is disappointed with the way vice-captain Josh Carr left the club but is confident that a young player can quickly fill the void.

At the end of the season, Carr revealed that he wanted to return to Port Adelaide after four years and 83 games and is expected to join that club in the NAB AFL Pre-Season Draft.

And while Fremantle will receive nothing for the gritty onballer, Scott is looking forward to the arrival of up to 12 teenagers through the looming drafts.

"We are all disappointed with the way that finished up," he said of Carr's departure.

"Josh was an important player and person for us, especially with the leadership void we now have. We'd love him to still be here, but he has made his decision and we will move on.

"The exciting part is that a 28-year-old will move on and we will bring in a 17-year-old who will hopefully play 10 or 12 years and fill those shoes quickly.

"We know how the market works and it's swings and roundabouts a little bit. When Josh made his decision we knew it would be tough to be compensated adequately for him and clubs weren’t prepared to give up picks."

The retirement of Peter Bell, Shaun McManus, Matthew Carr, Mark Johnson, Luke Webster and Jeff Farmer means captain Matthew Pavlich is the only remaining member of the 2008 leadership group and Scott is looking forward to seeing who wants to graduate to those responsibilities.

"That's exciting though, for our club and supporters," he said.

"We have a lot of young guys that we are confident with their football ability but also their leadership potential. We would like to see who stands up over pre-season and looks to take on that responsibility.

"We saw halfway through last season when we had some retirements and the older players weren’t playing, that the guys we brought in performed above expectations. The team was playing better when we had five or more guys under 20 in the side."

Scott also believes Fremantle didn’t receive as much as it could have for ruckman Robert Warnock in a trade with Carlton, but is happy to use Kepler Bradley and Daniel Gilmore as back-ups to big man Aaron Sandilands unless a top prospect is available in the NAB AFL Draft.

"We probably weren’t adequately compensated for losing Warnock either, but that's how the system works," he said.

"That leaves a little bit of a hole but we were pretty excited with how Kepler Bradley went about being the second ruckman late in the year and we know Daniel Gilmore can do it as well.

"It's fair to say that, like a lot of other clubs, if a high quality ruckman wanted to come to Fremantle we would be interested."