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Dockers in for young and old

By Mr Dandalooa

The Fremantle Football Club has undergone a massive restructuring on and off the field in the past year as it looks to achieve a top-four finish this season.

The Dockers’ new recruits have been told to aim for finals footy this season, despite talk already that the purple army are wooden spoon favourites.

Unveiled late last year, Freo’s six new draftees were challenged to establish themselves as AFL players in 2010 and urged by new player development coach, Simon Lloyd, to strive for the premiership this year.

Fremantle selected Anthony Morabito (pick four), Nathan Fyfe (pick 20), Joel Houghton (pick 36), Jesse Crichton (pick 48), Dylan Roberton (pick 49) and Justin Bollenhagen (pick 52) in last November’s National Draft.

The club has now added 23 new players to its list (half of its playing squad) in the past two years.

A confident coach, Mark Harvey, this week said Freo had a real chance of a top four finish this season, despite his young squad lacking any real AFL experience.

So far Freo’s players look to have bulked up somewhat this summer, with beefier upper bodies and core strength around their waists and thighs.

Midfielder Rhys Palmer, entering just his second season, is a contender to launch the new season against Adelaide on March 28 as Freo hold the left footer back during the NAB Cup.

Off the field, the club has also changed its structure to accommodate for the young playing list and for the return of the likes of Palmer.

Dockers head honcho Steve Rosich said the club now had a much tighter unit going into season 2010.

“As a result of that process and our restructuring, we feel we have a more efficient structure now and we’re seeing the club operate more effectively in 2010,” he said.

“Despite the challenges economically in 2009, we also saw a number of new companies and people get involved with the football club at all levels.

“At the sponsorship level we saw Woodside, WA’s largest company, come on board as a major sponsor.

“We’re very much enjoying the early part of our relationship with Woodside and they feature prominently on our home away guernsey in season 2010.”

“We’ve also seen other sponsors come on board like TAB Sports Bet, and Forty Winks, and we are in the final stages of negotiations with two more companies to come on board as significant sponsors of our football club in 2010.

“If we consummate those deals that will be no less that five new sponsors to come on board in the last six to seven months.”

Financially, Freo is doing well because of these deals, notching a $590,000 profit last season.

Although this was down from 2008, Rosich reckons he remains confident of the club’s place in the AFL marketplace.

“With significant partnerships like Woodside, ideally you work with your current corporate partners to keep them on board, and we have a good track record in that regard, but since LG’s strategic intent nationally was to move away from such partnerships, we worked with them early in the piece to recognise that change in strategic intent and give us a long lead time to secure a new major partner,” he said, adding that the club also endured changes to sponsors.

“With that long lead time we were able canvass the marketplace and secure a new valuable partner in Woodside.”

With 35,000 members so far this year, down 4,000 from this time last year, Rosich is confident of the club’s on field and off field success this year.

“Ideally we’d like to reach the membership level of last year, but we’re pretty comfortable with what we’ve got at this stage and the likely membership level for 2010,” he said.

“The flipside to a slightly lower membership is that it will give more people the opportunity to go to games on a match by match basis which is great for us as well.”