LUKE McPharlin's wife is the only person disappointed the veteran is playing in 2015 after he revealed he back-flipped on plans to retire at the end of last season.

McPharlin missed last year's finals series due to a calf injury and after playing just 13 games for the season it seemed likely that the 32-year-old would retire.

But following conversations with Fremantle coach Ross Lyon and the club's medical and strength and conditioning staff, McPharlin decided to play on into a 16th AFL season, much to his wife's dismay.

"This time last year I was thinking about retiring but I'm not saying anything at this point," McPharlin said. 

"Certainly my wife was very disappointed when I flipped and changed my decision last year. 

"We sort of tried to have a chat at the start of the year but she doesn't believe me anymore because she thought I'd retire three or four years ago. So we're just going to leave it and see what happens."

McPharlin said he had not missed a beat during the pre-season and he looms as an important figure in the early rounds of the season due to the likely absence of Zac Dawson (groin) and Alex Silvagni (hamstring) through injury.

The veteran is doing more strength work on his calves and hamstrings to try and prevent the soft-tissue injuries that have plagued him in the past three seasons. 

There has been talk about managing his playing load this year but McPharlin said he was keen to play as much as possible. 

"There was a bit of a discussion about that last year," McPharlin said. 

"But I think on the back of how well my pre-season has gone personally, it's really 'let's just play footy' and I really like that philosophy. 

"Certainly how the team's performing and how I'm performing of course will play a role in whether I play all the games through the year. 

"But at this point in time I'm really not looking any further than probably the first four weeks. 

"I really want to play some really good football in the first month and I'll reassess from there. I'm not really thinking about a figure or number of games."

The Dockers face a brutal first month of the season, starting with a clash against Port Adelaide on Sunday evening at Domain Stadium.

There are some injury clouds surrounding Hayden Ballantyne (calf), Tendai Mzungu (hamstring) and Matt Taberner (Achilles soreness) while Michael Barlow, Paul Duffield and Danyle Pearce will have to recover well after playing in the WAFL last weekend. 

The Dockers will also be without Ryan Crowley for at least the first month of the season as he waits for his AFL Anti-Doping Tribunal hearing on May 1. 

Crowley will be a big loss, particularly against Port Adelaide. He has tagged Port captain Travis Boak in each of the past three clashes and Boak has averaged just 18 disposals across the three games.

McPharlin said the club was still supporting Crowley through this period but he said his teammate would have to live with the consequences of not being available. 

"It's disappointing for him, it's disappointing for the team," McPharlin said. 

"He's a quality player, we'd like to have him playing for us. But these things happen and he has to deal with the consequences."

McPharlin said it was time to clean up Australian sport and get back to the business of playing, following the drug scandals that continue to rock the AFL.  

"Ultimately there's a situation in elite sport at the moment where a drug culture, whatever you want to call it, seems to be rife," McPharlin

"I think (the solution is) mostly around the education that we need to continue to push forward with and I know certainly at our club we have very strong protocols in place.

"But at the end of the day you're not always going to get 100 per cent compliance and we've seen that across the AFL in the last few years. 

"It's an issue but I think everyone is just trying to do their best to right it.

"We want to clean up Australian sport as quickly as possible and get back to the focus of playing good football and looking forward to the season."