Fremantle legend Matthew Pavlich says his former club has been brought “back into line” following their six-goal defeat to Collingwood.
The Dockers have now lost their last two games despite entering both as favourites and have a difficult patch upcoming when facing Melbourne and Brisbane.
Justin Longmuir’s side was one of the stories to start 2022 when winning seven of their first eight games, but Pavlich accepted the men in purple might have got ahead of themselves.
“It (the loss to Collingwood) probably dents their confidence I would have thought, and as he (Longmuir) said last night, it probably gives them a reality check, it brings them back into line,” he told SEN WA Breakfast.
“Fremantle are still a young list and an evolving team in terms of experience, so I think what the last two weeks does show is that… if you don’t focus on your preparation, if you don’t go and execute your role and play well as a team, you’re going to get shown up in this game and two sides have done that over the last couple of weeks that have been a bit more hungry in the contest and have definitely used the ball better than Freo, so lessons to be learnt there.”
Longmuir offered a similar assessment in his post-match media conference, saying “everyone was getting way ahead of themselves” and “you get what you deserve”.
When asked about the comments, Pavlich suggested he thought they were targeted at the wider AFL community.
However, he also questioned whether they were a “clip to the players”.
“I think he’s using the narrative and the ‘we’ as we as a club, we as a fanbase and we as a media, who have talked them up the first two months of the season,” he stated.
“I think there’s probably a reality check for everyone to go, ‘yep, they’re a good quality side who have made inroads over the first two months of the season, but they’ve still got a long way to go to be a genuine top-two, top-four team.
“When you hear him talk like that there may be a bit of a drop inside the club, and a bit of a clip to the players to say, ‘right, let’s refocus, we’ve had a good start to the year, we’ll take the 7-3 but the last two weeks are unacceptable, if you get ahead of yourself or allow yourself to start thinking too far ahead then this game does a really good job of giving you a reality check’.”
The Dockers are now only in the top four by percentage and are one win ahead of Richmond in eighth.