Anything and Everything Fremantle
Archive for December, 2011
Rookie Draft – Pick 8: Lee Spurr
012 years
Lee Spurr is a 24-year-old old former Queenslander who has spent the last five seasons playing for Central Districts in the SANFL, winning three premierships. He has been a very consistent performer at SANFL level over the last few years. He is a super courageous player who is very strong overhead. He has the ability to gut run and find plenty of the ball across half-back and has also impacted on games as a midfielder and at half-forward. He is an outstanding character. Lee averaged 22.3 touches and 7.3 marks a game at SANFL League level.
What the Dockers say
012 years
In summary
Fremantle saved a spot on its senior list for former St Kilda and Hawthorn defender Zac Dawson, and the club faced no final hurdles in securing the 25-year-old, who has been training with the club. That selection addressed a lack of key defenders on the club’s list, while the rookie draft was used to select the best players available. Interestingly, no key position players were taken in the rookie draft, with Fremantle continuing to stockpile versatile utility types. Clancee Pearce will return to the club’s rookie list as expected for a fourth year.
What the recruiter said
“Getting Zac Dawson was really important for our list management, to get that key defender to add some depth to our backline. Once we knew he was secured the next step was to take the best players available in the rookie draft. We’ve got around 240 games out of our rookies over the last three or four seasons, so our rookies have been really important for us.” – Fremantle general manager of player management Brad Lloyd.
‘Zoned’ Dockers an AFL power
012 years
by DockerNow.com
in Miscellaneous
Would Fremantle fans give up champion skipper Matthew Pavlich for Perth product Lance Franklin?
Or would West Coast supporters sacrifice gun midfielder Luke Shuey for Subiaco’s Daniel Rich?
Welcome to a world where the AFL goes back to the future.
One where AFL clubs have zones and get to take the best players from their home state before their interstate competitors. It’s also a world where instead of being rivals, brothers Stephen and Bradley Hill would be teammates.
Father, Harvs and coach get to Crowley
012 years
by DockerNow.com
in Miscellaneous
Ryan Crowley got the advice to breathe fresh life into his AFL career in triplicate: From former coach Mark Harvey, new coach Ross Lyon and his father Larry.
It was unequivocal: Lose weight and get back to what he was good at – keeping up with and antagonising the game’s best midfielders.
The results so far are stunning. Crowley has shed 8kg and has been the star of this pre-season at Fremantle. Set one-lap running drills against Stephen Hill this week, Crowley lost the first but surged past Hill to win the second by more than 20m. Seeing Hill get windburn from anyone is rare.
It wouldn’t have happened last season when Crowley, preparing for a defensive forward’s role early, beefed up to a cumbersome 96kg, then found he couldn’t lose the weight.
“I was told that if I was going to go forward they would want me to play midfield,” he said. “When I played my best footy I was around the 90kg mark and they told me that had to be my goal.
Lyon tells Sandilands to lighten up
012 years
by DockerNow.com
in Miscellaneous
By SportsNewsFirst
Aaron Sandliands is apparently big enough for new Dockers coach Ross Lyon, who has revealed the giant ruckman will enter the 2012 season the lightest he has been for four years.
Despite a new coach, a new regime and fresh ideas, Sandilands will remain one of the Fremantle’s major assets next season, as he returns from the toe injury which ruined his last season under Mark Harvey.
That injury was one of a slew which played a big part in the eventual shock sacking of the incumbent coach, who is now at Brisbane as an assistant as Lyon begins at the Dockers.
Somebody Open a Window
112 years
by DockerNow.com
in Miscellaneous
By FootyRhino.com.au
What if all our choices in life were made for us? Life would be a lot less complicated, or so you’d think. Fremantle Dockers superman Matthew Pavlich had one major decision taken out of his hands a long time ago at the draft… 12 years later his football legacy remains incomplete as a result.
Life is full of decisions.
What electives will I choose at Uni?
Do I stay at my current job or do I search for greater opportunity?
Do I split 10′s against a King?
Should I have one more beer or hit the road?
Do I go and see the 4th Indiana Jones movie despite horrible reviews?
The whole journey would be a lot easier if we had our decisions made for us. Like Matthew Pavlich did on an otherwise ordinary day in September of 1999.
Dale Alcock appointed to Fremantle Dockers’ board
012 years
Dale Alcock, the Managing Director of one of Australia’s leading home building groups, has been appointed to the board of the Fremantle Dockers for a three-year term.
Alcock, 50, who is the head of the Alcock Brown-Neaves Group, has been a member and corporate partner of the club since 2007. He replaces Wesfarmers CEO and managing director Richard Goyder, who stood down from the board after being appointed to the AFL Commission in September.
Alcock is a third generation builder, who commenced his career as an apprentice bricklayer in 1979 in Kellerberrin. He now oversees the ABN Group building approximately 3000 homes a year and which is ranked second in the Housing Industry Association’s (HIA) Housing Top 100 list.
A former president of the HIA and a winner of the Ernst & Young WA Entrepreneur of the Year Award, Alcock actively promotes and supports social responsibility. He established the ABN Foundation in 2006, which in the past 5 years has donated more than $5.2 million to various causes, including medical research, relief work and the environment.
No looking back for Harvey
012 years
by DockerNow.com
in Miscellaneous
After completing his first official session as a Brisbane Lions assistant coach, Mark Harvey says he has moved on from his Fremantle sacking and has eyes only for the future.
Harvey was sensationally axed in September after 97 games in charge of Freo as former St Kilda coach Ross Lyon was ushered in.
After contemplating offers from a number of clubs, Harvey made the longest trip in the country to join the Lions.
He made his unofficial debut at the club last Thursday, inconspicuously watching training in the rain from the boundary line in a lime green shirt, but reported for duty in his grey Lions’ coaches’ shirt on Monday.
The former Essendon champion, 46, was polite and relaxed, but not keen to talk about his former employers.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’ve moved on,” Harvey said.
Addiction drove Tendai Mzungu’s return to AFL
012 years
by DockerNow.com
in Miscellaneous
Fremantle’s Tendai Mzungu is an addict.
The 25-year-old WAFL recruit, who collected the Dockers Beacon Award for the best first year player last season, is addicted to life in the unforgiving AFL.
“It was a bit surreal really. Running out in front of big crowds and playing on the MCG in front of passionate fans was something I love and am sort of addicted to now and I really want to do it again and again,” he said.
Broughton at home in the trenches
012 years
by DockerNow.com
in Miscellaneous
Greg Broughton was a third-year apprentice plumber standing in a trench, shovel in hand, in December three years ago when he took a call from then Fremantle coach Mark Harvey telling him he had been rookie-listed.
Fitting. Broughton the footballer has always given the impression of a bloke just going about his work to the best of his ability.
When Harvey told him the news, he did a couple of hours more work before knocking off at lunchtime on the insistence of his boss.
He started training at Fremantle the next day, suddenly a full-time footballer, and is still trying to find time to finish his plumbing apprenticeship.
But Broughton’s no-fuss style does no justice to his high football standards.
In 2011, of 27 key statistical categories kept by Fremantle, Broughton finished top five in 17. And he managed that coming off an injury-interrupted pre-season, hampered by a hamstring niggle that wouldn’t go away for much of the summer.
