Robbie has spent the past fortnight building his match fitness with West Perth in the WAFL and was named amongst the Falcons’ best players last weekend against East Perth. He collected 17 possessions, 13 hit outs, five marks and one goal in the Falcons loss to the Royals. His first term was particularly impressive with nine kicks and seven hit outs and his absence was felt in the second term when he was rested on the bench as East Perth pulled out to a three goal lead. The Falcons rallied late before half time when he returned to the field to go into the long break trailing by one point.
Speaking today along side West Coast coach John Worsfold, Mark said Robbie would come into consideration as Fremantle looked to structure up suitably against the Eagles’ dynamic ruck combination of Dean Cox and Mark Seaby.
“They’re obviously a duo that has been together for a couple of years and they work really well with each other,” Mark said of Cox and Seaby.
“We have success with a guy like (Daniel) Gilmore in the ruck. It’s a different type of ruck.
“Aaron (Sandilands) is obviously winning enough of the hit outs and he is against a quality player in Dean, so it is just a matter of whether we go with Robbie or not.”
Mark said he was surprised with West Coast Assistant Coach Peter Sumich’s comments earlier in the week regarding a perceived lack of respect for the Eagles amongst Fremantle’s coaching team. But while he found the remarks surprising he wasn’t overly concerned with them.
“We’ve got to focus on the game now I think,” Mark said.
“Peter’s made the comments…..in time it will probably come out what he was really meaning. We’ve got to go about what we need to do to beat West Coast and let’s not worry about what Peter said.”
Along with Robbie, Heath Black will also be available for selection after overcoming concussion he sustained against Collingwood that forced him to miss Fremantle’s Starlight Purple Haze Game against Hawthorn last weekend. Shaun McManus and Mark Johnson were also labelled 50/50 chances of lining up against the Eagles.
Heading into his second Carlton Mid Derby as Senior Coach of Fremantle, Mark said he was looking forward to the clash on Saturday afternoon.
“They’re always enthralling contests and have a sensational build up to the game. It gets the whole town thinking and talking about the game,” Mark said.
Leading into round one Club Captain Matthew Pavlich said clubs would need until round eight or nine to get a true indicator of how well they were travelling compared to the rest of the league. Echoing the comments of his Captain, Mark said too much should not be read into early season results but also that starting the season 0-3 made the task of regaining ground on the rest of the competition difficult.
“I think you’ll find it’s going to be a tough competition this year,” Mark said.
“I think there’s a couple of sides that maybe are just standing above the rest this time of year but a lot of things can get caught up quite quickly throughout the course of the season.”
