Despite the increasing number of excellent players who have left the club in recent years, football manager Peter Bell says FREMANTLE is “really comfortable” with the list it is creating.
A valuable small forward, Lachie Schultz joined wingman Liam Henry on Monday in requesting a trade to Victoria. In a surprise move for the Dockers, who had previously discussed an extension with the 25-year-old, Schultz named Collingwood as his preferred club. The losses of the two players, along with Blake Acres, Adam Cerra, Rory Lobb, and Griffin Logue, in the last three off-seasons have the potential to derail the Dockers’ aspirations for success.
Amidst those departures, Fremantle has added premiership ruckman Luke Jackson from Melbourne and re-signed important players to long-term contracts, including Caleb Serong (2027), Hayden Young (2027), Brennan Cox (2030), and Michael Frederick (2026).
As was the case when Cerra left at the end of 2021, Bell stated that change might present opportunity for the Dockers to add talent to its roster, even though they could decide to reject Schultz’s trade request and keep him under contract through 2024.
“I use ‘Cez’ as an example, who we loved during his time at Fremantle and he was a great teammate and really solid character,” Bell told Continental Tyres AFL Trade Radio.
They’re quite difficult to locate. Thus, change itself may occasionally present you with wonderful opportunities.”
Bell added that a number of players had recently departed Fremantle with the club’s backing in search of better chances.Contract offers that were perceived as uncompetitive or delayed, however, have also played a role in the Dockers losing players such as Acres and Logue.
Given some of those players who had left were local talents, Bell said becoming more focused on drafting West Australians was not necessarily the answer to retention.
“We like to draft West Australians as a general rule, but we can’t shut ourselves off from talent across the nation,” he said.
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