From the Pocket: Fremantle must get pulses racing to finally break the cycle of ‘vanilla’ mediocrity

Let’s not skirt the issue. Coaches like Longmuir will always face more criticism from the media. At his first news conference, he was stuttering and jittery. The man he replaced was completely different from him. He is not an alpha male. Last year, a prominent pundit claimed that he “lacked presence.” How on earth can that signify anything? Despite his lack of presence, Ulysses Grant prevailed in a civil war. The players assumed Alastair Clarkson was an errand boy when he first arrived at Hawthorn. Jonathan Brown is present. There is Matthew Pavlich. There is presence from the mascot brandishing an inflatable anchor. None of them are necessarily qualified to coach. Longmuir’s modest demeanour does not preclude him from coaching.

However, Longmuir needs to accomplish something with this group by 2025. Since 2020, he has served as Fremantle’s coach. Including one final, he has won slightly over half of the games he has coached. His side recalls me of Chris Scott’s Geelong teams from approximately 2012 to 2019 – slow and cautious, defensively sound but tardy by foot, certainly not a team you’d cancel all plans to watch.

Being a Fremantle supporter is a requirement. Martin McKenzie-Murray, one of my favourite Australian newspaper writers, does a fantastic job writing about them. He commented a few years ago, “By supporting Freo, I’ve come to wallow – luxuriate, even – in our seemingly endless mediocrity.” “My self-pity has magically transformed Freo’s history into a sort of melancholy, private martyrdom, rather than something to be fought or something that might cause pain.”

That’s how people used to write about Richmond before the comedy wore off. The wonderful thing about Dockers supporters, like the Tigers, is that they don’t put up with garbage. They are gregarious, devoted, yet sometimes aloof. They have been in the AFL for ten years and have yet to win a premiership. They are worthy of some success. They anticipate it with their present list. Vanilla, however, won’t get them anywhere in 2025, whether it’s the players moving the ball from one end of the pitch to the other or the club explaining the coach’s current employment status.