COACH Mark Harvey says Fremantle's decision to shed experience at the end of 2008 has been justified and the club has earned respect in the process.
Retirements at the end of last season stripped the club of experience and leadership but for the second straight year Fremantle ignored trade week, opting to draft 14 first-year players to the club.
Harvey said Fremantle's hardline approach to youth and the performances of his young brigade, led by Stephen Hill and Nick Suban, had earned respect.
"I think our effort and our competitiveness have been accepted in some way, shape or form," he told afl.com.au.
"And a lot of the decision-making at the end of last year has been justified with the changing of the list and the changing of the guard.
"I'd like to think that people respect the courage of all of those decisions, by the club particularly."
Harvey has overseen seven AFL debuts this season, six of those being first-year players. He forecast up to 10 by round 22.
It's an aggressive youth policy that he said would not have been possible without the support of the club's hierarchy.
"Your board, your football staff, your CEO, even our sponsorship and marketing, they've all got to be behind what you're doing," he said.
"And we're growing, we're growing as a football club more so than when we were inducted into the AFL in 1995. This is the first time the club's made a conscious decision since then to go this way (with youth)."
Harvey said developing youth was prominent on his resume as a coach, and he was beginning to stamp his style and beliefs on the group.
"That evolves with the playing group and the young players, their attitude and how they think about and approach football," he said.
"But what you want your group to be is obsessive and relentless in their approach to your game plan and winning."
As well as Hill and Suban, rookie-elevations Matt de Boer and Greg Broughton have flourished under Harvey and the coach was hopeful the club's next draft would round out his list.
It will leave the coach with a young and talented group and a full season to prove he has them going in the right direction.
"I'm contracted until the end of next year and my whole review basically will be based on how I'm developing this young team," he said.
"It doesn't necessarily revolve around win/loss, but you'd certainly need to be making sure the team is heading in the right direction.
"As funny as it sounds, with three wins and all that we've just gone through…the pride in me, my competitiveness as a coach and what I've tried to instil in the playing group, we want to win more regularly than we have been."
