Former Crows forward Josh Jenkins believes Fremantle doesn’t have the personnel to suit their current game style.
The Dockers have started off the season out of sorts, with just one win in their first four games as they look a far cry from the side that won 15 matches last season.
Much of their issues stem from their ineffective attack, with the Dockers ranking 14th in average points per game, which Jenkins credits to their players not fitting the strategy Justin Longmuir has implemented.
“That cannot be how they want to play, they don’t have the firepower in the front half,” he told SEN Breakfast.
“When you’ve got dangerous forwards and you’re a midfielder, what’re you thinking, ‘if I get the ball, I want to give them a chance’.
“If you haven’t got them and you’re not in love with what you’ve got in the forward line, when you get the ball what are you thinking?”
With Jenkins predicting pre-season that Fremantle would fall out of the top eight, the Dockers’ problems in attack has only established that view.
“Some of us had them dropping out of finals… how you couldn’t see that they were going to have issues ahead of the ball, I’m not sure,” he said.
“How anyone couldn’t see that Fremantle were going to have trouble with their forward line is beyond me.
“The purple haze… they could be and should be 0-4.”
SEN’s Sam Edmund agrees with Jenkins, believing Fremantle’s strategy is outdated.
“Their ball movement is slow, it’s chippy, it’s conservative,” he said.
“It’s a team with a style that appears to be stuck in the olden days almost, the lack of defensive running is stark at the weekend.
“They’re 1-3, they beat West Coast who had about nine fit blokes on the day.
“They look so stale.”
With this approach seemingly being a deliberate strategy by Fremantle senior coach Justin Longmuir, Edmund can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel for the Dockers.
“When they lost to St Kilda, that was Round 1, and they had a hundred thousand uncontested marks and went nowhere, and were overrun by the Saints, there was a question from a journo in the press conference, ‘now is this the way you want to play or did the opposition make you play this way’,” Edmund said.
“He actually said, Justin Longmuir, ‘well a bit of both,’ which I thought was a telling admission.
“This is a club that finished fifth, won 15 games, they look a long way off that.”
Fremantle will get a chance to work out their issues against a fellow struggling team in the Suns, taking on Gold Coast in Adelaide a part of Gather Round.