FREMANTLE is feeling confident ahead of its trip to South Africa, NAB Cup opener against West Coast and the 2008 season, with coach Mark Harvey shrugging off claims former captain Peter Bell is already struggling.

Bell will play the season for the Dockers while living and working in Geraldton, north of Perth, but despite his missing the club’s photo shoot, Harvey is confident he will perform well in what is expected to be the final year of his decorated career.

“Peter’s ill at the moment, but it should only keep him off the track for a couple of days,” Harvey said.

“There has been some things written about Peter already, but what we should do is sit back and see the outcome of Peter’s performance this season. We are confident in the program we’ve set up for him and knowing how proud Peter is, I think he will have a very good season.”

Harvey will take a relatively young squad to South Africa to take on Carlton in an exhibition game, but the players there will need to perform well ahead of the NAB Cup Western Derby on February 17.

“Some of our guys will see things they’ve never seen before when they go to South Africa, so there should be enormous benefit to get out of it. I’d like to stay there longer, but with fixturing we can’t. We might look to stay longer next year if we can,” he said.

“I’m basically taking an under-24 side and I’ve told the guys that, even though it’s only an exhibition game, I’ll be using it as an indicator to two weeks time against West Coast.

"Jeff [Farmer] is one experienced guy going, but a couple of younger players can’t and won’t go, so that enables a couple of over 24s to come along.”

While Harvey is desperate to improve on Fremantle’s 2007, he is not drawing on that for inspiration, but is confident his experienced squad can perform well.

“If you live in the past, you miss the future. Every club will be thinking they will make the top eight, but we won’t make any excuses, we will be going for whatever we can this season,” he said.

“We have only added some kids to our list, one experienced guy and another who is fighting to get his career back on track, so we haven’t actually gone and got a superstar player from another club that cost us draft picks.”

Fremantle’s chief executive is also confident of a strong 2008 on and off the field, as he welcomed Fremantle-based company Marine and Civil Construction as coaching sponsor.

“It’s the second highest value sponsorship of this kind in the AFL and to be able to attract an organisation that is building the WA economy and has a Fremantle flavour is something we’re very proud of,” Schwab said.

“There has been some turnover with membership but the pleasing thing is that there has been enormous demand from new members. We expect to be in just as strong a position this year as we were last and we expect to sell out in corporate areas.”