Training Pre-Season 2025 - Freo vs Melbourne @ Rushton Park Mandurah - 1510PM Sunday 02/03/2025

[vidwhal]

Fremantle Dockers 2025 Intraclub #2
23-02-2025​

Here ya go peeps. It doesn't look as nice as the first Intraclub as I overblew the brightness and caused the clarity to suffer but it is in 60fps so hopefully that helps.

Cheers.

 

[what a game]

Here's my promised training report from today's match sims. I watched about 2/3's of the match sims so didnt see everything. Many players were wearing hats making player identification even more difficult. A ton of players weren't involved. Narkle, Sturt, Walker, Luke Jackson, Sean Darcy were in the rehab group. All look close to return bar perhaps Sturt. Im really confident Walker and Jackson will join in training next week. With many other players in the gym or on bikes. Fyfe only came out briefly and did some very low impact work including kicking a tennis ball for 20 minutes.
Hot, humid conditions. Skills were really good in my opinion.
Some of the more interesting things in the match sims included:
Serong, Erasmus and Reid spending time forward.
Erasmus kicked an outstanding goal from the pocket when he was forward. Serong spent pretty much all of the second quarter as his teams deepest forward where he looked great flying for pack marks. Interestingly when forward he was manned by Draper who was superb in the match sims today playing on mostly smalls. Draper's poise and kicking were superb. Reid spent time playing as a roaming forward and kicked a couple of great goals. One was when he roved a pack and snapped on the left. He spent most of his time midfield where his kicking and gut running were excellent. He is very small but if training form is anything to go by he'll be in the team sooner rather than later.

Erasmus looks fantastic. His kicking and decision making was excellent and like I said he impressed when forward. Neil's gut running looks to have gone to a new level this preseason. NOD also looks to have taken his fitness and gut running to a new level too as was in everything today playing mostly onball.

Ollie Murphy shapes as a huge improver in 2025. He's noticbly stronger and looks to have improved his speed over short distances too. In one piece of play today he ran off his man (Voss) to stop a certain goal with a fantastic smother. I think he's a genuine prospect on our list.

Riddle continues to impress with his movement around the ground. He took a really strong mark and kicked a great goal today.

I hadnt noticed our other tall draftee. Charlie Nicholls before today but today I made an effort to watch him a bit closer and although he didnt win a lot of the football you can see some exceptional athletic traits that show why we
rated him. His speed off the mark is exceptional and once he gains some muscle he shapes as another tall with high upside potential on our list. He would be about as quick as Sturt from what Ive seen so very, very quick for a big man. Charlie's definitely taller than his listed 197cm.

Aish and Brodie also looked good at training today. Both look like they've improved their running since last sseason. Aish in particular is looking very decisive with ball in hand.

Cox is another who's impressing with his attitude to training. He is super lean and looking the fittest Ive seen him.

Anyway thats my very positive report on the match sim.

I ventured down to watch my first pre season hit out.
After leaving there was so much to think about and it’s hard not to be positive.
I can’t add much to sheriffs take on what he saw.
It’s exactly as I saw it.
Kudos has to go to erasamus on the effort he has put in over summer. His ability to be in a contest and then quickly spread to create a dangerous option was very noticeable. His link up play was great too.
The other player I think is going to have a break out year is NOD
His strength around the ball plus his speed and vision with his hands was great to watch.
The other player was Draper he just seems to have so much time on his hands with the ball.

On watching the drills before the sim some of the younger guys have certainly hit the gym as they are noticeably bigger.
Just on a few others
Riddle looks like a player at times more than held his own against reidy so a year in wafl it will be interesting to see him by the end of the year.
Murphy just seems to have a footy brain and reads the play well. A lot quicker than I assumed

I think we have found a real player in “Bruce “ fast clean and clever he is going to be fun to watch wherever he plays he’s just got real class. Maybe serong 2.0

All I can say to people if you ever get the opportunity to go and have a look at trainings please do you will absolutely love it

 

[Taylor]

It would be unfortunate for all of Fremantle's indigenous stars to be unavailable to play for the uncontrolled minutes of an opposition side.

 

[Dale147]

 

[eastfreo75]

Disagree, Johnson is strong and breaks tackles with his hips. Funny how Ras is TTHD and Johnson is now rubbish..
Both players are young, heaps of development coming..

Breaking tackles with your hips and shoulders is not the same.

 

[Quay Club]

View attachment 2216523

The body transformation is a credit to Darcy.

He is obviously determined to give it a red hot crack this year.

 

[greatgatsby]

It would be unfortunate for all of Fremantle's indigenous stars to be unavailable to play for the uncontrolled minutes of an opposition side.

Would indeed be deeply disappointing

 

[sansian]

LOL

Lightning Bolton, I like that.

Should we start calling him McQueen? As in "Lightning Bolton McQueen"?

Too far? I'll see myself out.

This is exactly where my mind went

 

[Superkoops]

It would be unfortunate for all of Fremantle's indigenous stars to be unavailable to play for the uncontrolled minutes of an opposition side.

Isiah Dudley will be available.

On a more serious note - I’m sure Alex Pearce will get himself up. It’s likely why they tapped him out after strapping and a fitness test. He obviously gave his foot a good roll. Once the tape removed foot usually blows up so bucket of ice is pretty standard. I’d expect him to be on light duties this coming week.

 

[purplerunsdeep2]

Any word on Dudley getting signed on?

Credit to him to make it to Feb, you'd think if he's made it this far, the club sees something

Most clubs have nominated their SSPs?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[greatgatsby]

Isiah Dudley will be available.

On a more serious note - I’m sure Alex Pearce will get himself up. It’s likely why they tapped him out after strapping and a fitness test. He obviously gave his foot a good roll. Once the tape removed foot usually blows up so bucket of ice is pretty standard. I’d expect him to be on light duties this coming week.

I think Taylor's point might have been that it would be unfortunate if Pearce butchered his ankle playing way too much time on the ground in an exhibition match when the Freo staff don't have control over his playing time.

 

[Taylor]

That was the subtext of it. It is also a shame that the guys on our squad don't get to play, but competitive men are competitive and will push through where Fremantle might pull them out of the game.

There sure isn't going to be eighteen team physio teams on hand to manage their players.

 

[Superkoops]

That was the subtext of it. It is also a shame that the guys on our squad don't get to play, but competitive men are competitive and will push through where Fremantle might pull them out of the game.

There sure isn't going to be eighteen team physio teams on hand to manage their players.

Our physios will be there.

Same risk for any PS game.

 

[yakamoto]

Yesterday Sharp and Worner were opposed on the fat side wing. Can anyone tell me who O’Meara was opposed to on the other.

 

[bone2468]

Yesterday Sharp and Worner were opposed on the fat side wing. Can anyone tell me who O’Meara was opposed to on the other.

Matt Johnson’s shoulder

 

[vidwhal]

Hey crew, I've been out of the loop for a bit regarding training stuff. Have scrolled up a bit but not able to determine if Freo have played any of the actual intraclubs yet?
Any peeps with the knowledge?
Cheers

 

[eastfreo75]

If you ignore his poor kicking

and decision making.

 

[Fred Ziffel]

It's absolute quality musicianship

You seem more of a Tina Turna fan

Nah, CCR for me.

 

[go_the_dockers]

Any word on Dudley getting signed on?

Credit to him to make it to Feb, you'd think if he's made it this far, the club sees something

Most clubs have nominated their SSPs?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

He is one of the 5 players, I am excited to see come preseason.

Simpson, Reid, Erasmus, Dudley, O'Driscoll all could potentially find a spot in our best 22. (Dudley will start in the WAFL I think, but if we loose small forward and he plays well, I don't see why he couldn't force his way in )

Hopefully we sign him shortly, and he is fit enough have an impact.

 

[Docker82]

He is one of the 5 players, I am excited to see come preseason.

Simpson, Reid, Erasmus, Dudley, O'Driscoll all could potentially find a spot in our best 22. (Dudley will start in the WAFL I think, but if we loose small forward and he plays well, I don't see why he couldn't force his way in )

Hopefully we sign him shortly, and he is fit enough have an impact.

I think we've got close to two weeks to make a decision tbh.

We've always leaned towards leaving a position free for the MSD rather than take a train on as a SSP. Only time we actually signed a train on was when there was two spots available.

 

[go_the_dockers]

I think we've got close to two weeks to make a decision tbh.

We've always leaned towards leaving a position free for the MSD rather than take a train on as a SSP. Only time we actually signed a train on was when there was two spots available.

and then not taking a pick in the MSD

 

[Docker82]

and then not taking a pick in the MSD

We've taken way more picks in the MSD.

Both are a touch overrated by fans IMO. Outside of some years massively impacted by COVID 19 both are lucky to produce 4-5 decent players a season. The numbers would be lower if you removed players like Jeremy Sharp from the equation (i.e. limit SSPs to train ons). That'd be something like 20-25 failed picks and 4-5 good ones.

Yea, you miss every swing you don't take etc. but I'm not going to be disappointed if we ever overlook the MSD and SSP. One less list spot to create at seasons end.

 

[theGav56]

All optimism aside, the biggest list question mark for the coming season is Darcy. It is in sharper focus this season given:

• the use of Jackson as the #1 ruck may not have been an abject failure, but it was not a success.
• it was clear the club did not have faith in Reidy, or perhaps a Reidy/Jackson combination. That may still be the case.

For the above reasons I would keep a MSD slot available.

I'd also like Simpson and Reid to get opportunities if a small forward is injured.

 

[Taylor]

Match sim Friday should be interesting

 

[Dockernut]

All optimism aside, the biggest list question mark for the coming season is Darcy. It is in sharper focus this season given:

• the use of Jackson as the #1 ruck may not have been an abject failure, but it was not a success.
• it was clear the club did not have faith in Reidy, or perhaps a Reidy/Jackson combination. That may still be the case.

For the above reasons I would keep a MSD slot available.

I'd also like Simpson and Reid to get opportunities if a small forward is injured.

All good if we don’t have faith in Reidy we can always rely on Tabs as the backup ruck, just roll him out of retirement and it’ll be the immeasurable success it was against the Cats when our season was on the line.

Derrrrrrrrrrrp!

Still easily one of the ****en dumbest match committee decisions of this club in recent times.

 

[Superkoops]

All good if we don’t have faith in Reidy we can always rely on Tabs as the backup ruck, just roll him out of retirement and it’ll be the immeasurable success it was against the Cats when our season was on the line.

Derrrrrrrrrrrp!

Still easily one of the ****en dumbest match committee decisions of this club in recent times.

That match list decision against Geelong choosing Tabs ahead of Reidy was next level stupid. Cost us that game in my opinion.