Fremantle No Longer Easybeat
The Age
Saturday April 3, 2004
Sydney
Fremantle once was a team with no respect - but Chris Connolly, coach, motivator, a man who has been spied waving white inflatable Dockers' anchors on the boundary line after wins in the west, has moulded his young side into a force.
The Dockers are no longer the easybeats that the opposition teams automatically calculated how they would boost their percentages. And Connolly wants to use that as a motivational part of his coaching.
``If you lost to Fremantle in Melbourne, then they'd be looking to sack the president, CEO, coach on the Monday," Connolly says.
``Because when you lose to Fremantle, you are a disgrace, but I think now people are saying this team is not too bad, they are going to be really competitive, and you know they may get up at times. That's a significant mind shift, because the fear of failure can be as strong a motivator as the will to be successful.
``And, by hell, there was no greater fear of failure of losing to Fremantle when they were away from home. And, hopefully, that's changing."
Like Swans coach Paul Roos, Connolly has injected his football club with a new belief and confidence. Last year, Connolly pushed Fremantle into its first finals series since its inception in the competition back in 1995.
And before, it had struggled playing away - and that, like its failing past, has been swept to the side.
``We need to win five of the 10 consistently away to get where we want to go (this year)," Connolly said. ``That's a big challenge for us, and I think we are a lot more confident going away, just through experience with the group, just starting to build some chemistry.
``We had six guys last year who'd never been to Sydney, play in our team."
Fremantle is a young side, with only a few players such as Peter Bell with a wealth of experience, and one of its rising stars is Aaron Sandilands.
At 211 centimetres and weighing 120 kilograms, Sandilands is phenomenally agile and quick.
While not yet labelled a matchwinner by Connolly, he sees the potential such an athlete can have.
``He must be tripping over his own two feet," Connolly thought of Sandilands when he was first told of his height.
``He can run an 800 as quick as Peter Bell, he's unbelievable, he's very clean marking . . .
``He dominated the hits but we lost the clearances last week. But he played a significant role around the ground directing the ball, I think he's starting to have influence on games, and if we can have enough players doing that, then we end up a real competitive force.
``I feel, for the first time at Fremantle, we are in a position where we are a real chance in every game."
Meanwhile, the Swans' Jarrad Sundqvist is out for the season after rupturing his anterior cruciate in his right leg.
The injury happened at the end of training yesterday and Sundqvist had been named to play in the Swans reserve game.
Tadhg Kennelly (knee) completed yesterday's training session and will line up for the Swans.
In the name of aesthetics, the SCG will this season be marked with 45-metre forward-line arcs, rather than the traditional 50 metres, because of the AFL's rule change governing the size of the centre square.
For 2004, the square has been extended by five metres to 50 at all venues, which meant if 50 arcs remained at the SCG - which is the shortest ground in the league at 148.5 metres from goal to goal - then the lines would have crossed over into the square.
The new set-up will come into play for the first time tomorrow.
The AFL said it expected no variation in the way in which Champion Data, the league's statistics supplier, collected its inside 50 statistics because of the new 45-metre set-up at the SCG.
© 2004 The Age