A TRANSFORMED Fremantle has seen some star veterans move on and 14 fresh faces join the group in the beginning of a new era at the club.
Arrivals
Onfield: Stephen Hill, Hayden Ballantyne, Nick Suban, Zach Clarke, Michael Walters, Ben Bucovaz, Tim Ruffles, Chris Hall, Casey Sibosado, Matt DeBoer, Hamish Shepheard, Clancee Pearce, Jay Van Berlo, Greg Broughton.
Off-field: Todd Curley, Barry Mitchell (assistant coaches), Jason Weber (sports science manager), Darren Burgess (sports science consultant), Chris Spinks (strength and conditioning coach), Luke Webster (player development manager), Shaun McManus, (part-time player development coach)
Departures
Onfield: Peter Bell, Heath Black, Matthew Carr, Jeff Farmer, Mark Johnson, Shaun McManus, Luke Webster (retired), Josh Carr, Ryley Dunn, Calib Mourish, Chris Smith (delisted), Robert Warnock (Carlton)
Off field: Peter German (assistant coach), Robert Shaw (general manager football operations), Ben Tarbox (fitness and conditioning coach)
Pre-season training started: Monday, October 27
Training resumes: First week of January, with the majority to be conducted at Fremantle HQ at Fremantle Oval.
Medical room
Injuries are well under control, with the majority of the group fit and joining in full pre-season. The only exceptions are draftee Hayden Ballantyne, who had surgery last week to remove a screw put in his wrist three years ago, and the other 13 players joining the list, who are being eased into the AFL system. Paul Hasleby is also working hard on returning from a knee reconstruction.
Who's burning?
Steven Dodd and Ryan Crowley were first and second in the opening 3km time trial and have continued to look good from there, while veterans Des Headland and Roger Hayden are ripping up the training track. That is particularly good news for Headland, who is looking for a big year after knee problems led to him missing most of 2008 after being in the best shape of his career.
Pre-season training camps
The club's Telstra Community Camp for 2009 will be held in Broome from February 4-7.
Pre-season training overview
"The biggest challenge is to take a player group that has pursued a certain type of preparation and taking that to another level. We need to step up in many areas on and off field.
"One of the biggest things is that we are picking up detail on their skill as athletes. We had them come in over a period of a couple of weeks and we assessed them to find some significant areas to improve. That will make them better runners but also combat athletes and allow them to dispose of the ball in high traffic, which Mark (Harvey) identified as a weakness.
"It will be a tough year because we are coming in with a young list. There were a lot of contributing variables to the fourth quarter fadeouts and we have addressed those. Fremantle fans will see a more combative team; we will be a much tougher and tighter team that won't fall off the ball."
– Sports science manager Jason Weber
What coach Mark Harvey says:
"It's been a big transformation of this football club and we are all about building a new era.
"We want to make sure the young players we get to this club have every chance of becoming great players for Fremantle, but to also cover all aspects of life skills and football. We've spent a lot of resources in that area and I believe we are doing a lot of things right.
"It would be fair to say that right across the board we are training harder than this time last year and that will continue through the course of the pre-season. The guys aren’t sleeping well at night and that's a good sign that they are training hard."
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
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