Trust Has Been Broken
04/21/25 • 39 min
It really hurts us to say it, but they have broken our trust. What’s that line about being able to place more trust in curried egg sandwiches from the petrol station? Time to Restump Podcast Saturday’s purple heart break.
A vital component in the building of trust is consistency. Without it, by its very nature, trust cannot exist. Yet, ironically the only area of consistency we can trust the Freo Dockers in, is inconsistency.
Once again, Freo has fooled many of us on the back of what we knew and acknowledged were soft victories. How did we think the consistent, less than substandard performances were behind us? Prior to Saturday we stated how poor our defensive efforts have been, and have been against the least offensive teams! Yet even so we could not fathom being unable to convincingly beat the Dees.
Are we overrating the list? Do we have a team of talented players that do not comprise a genuinely talented team? Or is the list still not ready or equipped to handle the relentless rigors of AFL football? Yes, Sean Darcy is severely underdone and Heath Chapman’s absence hurt us. But they weren’t reasons for getting rolled by a zero and five team.
Whatever the case we had 15 players with 80 or more games of experience, 11 of them with beyond 100 games under their belts out there on Saturday. So, there is no excuse for that lack of intent, the unwillingness to compete at the contest or the failure to chase and tackle. They’re called non-negotiables for a reason! They’re all prerequisites for being on an AFL list.
Fresh off signing a long-term deal, you wonder what is going through Andy Brayshaw’s head? Next to no one went with him in that final quarter when the game was there to be taken. Caleb Serong was monstered by Jack Viney who was magnificent in his role. Where was the help for him? Did anyone cause Viney any discomfort? Did anyone attempt to block Viney for Serong?
The “Sack the Coach” crew have predictably come out of hibernation as its their easy go to answer for everything. But if you think 80+ gamers aren’t bringing the basics unless the coach drills it into them, then the problem probably isn’t entirely with the coach. And four quarters of the basics wins that game!
That been said and to be fair to the coach doubters, Justin Longmuir now inevitably finds himself under immense pressure as another of this type of performance warrants putting everything on the table for questioning. With the ominous fixture ahead, things need to change overnight and for more than a week or two for JL not to be in a more precarious position than he unfortunately is right now.
Is it overdue for an actual example to made at the selection table? More often than not, players have seemingly been given the opportunity to respond and rectify a poor performance the following week, and have usually done so. But given the continual sporadic nature of the same poor performances occurring, maybe they’ve used up all their redemption chances? There has seemingly been a reluctance to cut other than the usual suspects. What did our former coach Rosco say? “Execute one to educate a thousand.”
Yes, we will regroup as we always do and we will go again. It is emotionally taxing and it is frustrating, at times excruciating and demoralising. But while we’re in for a long and often painful season if Saturday is indicative of what is to sporadically turn up, this is football and Fremantle is our team.
This isn’t everyone’s first grief counselling rodeo. We’ve all been here more times than we care to recall. So, you know the drill. Join us as we search for answers, for reasoning and for purpose. Let’s work through the pain on the pod once more.
It really hurts us to say it, but they have broken our trust. What’s that line about being able to place more trust in curried egg sandwiches from the petrol station? Time to Restump Podcast Saturday’s purple heart break.
A vital component in the building of trust is consistency. Without it, by its very nature, trust cannot exist. Yet, ironically the only area of consistency we can trust the Freo Dockers in, is inconsistency.
Once again, Freo has fooled many of us on the back of what we knew and acknowledged were soft victories. How did we think the consistent, less than substandard performances were behind us? Prior to Saturday we stated how poor our defensive efforts have been, and have been against the least offensive teams! Yet even so we could not fathom being unable to convincingly beat the Dees.
Are we overrating the list? Do we have a team of talented players that do not comprise a genuinely talented team? Or is the list still not ready or equipped to handle the relentless rigors of AFL football? Yes, Sean Darcy is severely underdone and Heath Chapman’s absence hurt us. But they weren’t reasons for getting rolled by a zero and five team.
Whatever the case we had 15 players with 80 or more games of experience, 11 of them with beyond 100 games under their belts out there on Saturday. So, there is no excuse for that lack of intent, the unwillingness to compete at the contest or the failure to chase and tackle. They’re called non-negotiables for a reason! They’re all prerequisites for being on an AFL list.
Fresh off signing a long-term deal, you wonder what is going through Andy Brayshaw’s head? Next to no one went with him in that final quarter when the game was there to be taken. Caleb Serong was monstered by Jack Viney who was magnificent in his role. Where was the help for him? Did anyone cause Viney any discomfort? Did anyone attempt to block Viney for Serong?
The “Sack the Coach” crew have predictably come out of hibernation as its their easy go to answer for everything. But if you think 80+ gamers aren’t bringing the basics unless the coach drills it into them, then the problem probably isn’t entirely with the coach. And four quarters of the basics wins that game!
That been said and to be fair to the coach doubters, Justin Longmuir now inevitably finds himself under immense pressure as another of this type of performance warrants putting everything on the table for questioning. With the ominous fixture ahead, things need to change overnight and for more than a week or two for JL not to be in a more precarious position than he unfortunately is right now.
Is it overdue for an actual example to made at the selection table? More often than not, players have seemingly been given the opportunity to respond and rectify a poor performance the following week, and have usually done so. But given the continual sporadic nature of the same poor performances occurring, maybe they’ve used up all their redemption chances? There has seemingly been a reluctance to cut other than the usual suspects. What did our former coach Rosco say? “Execute one to educate a thousand.”
Yes, we will regroup as we always do and we will go again. It is emotionally taxing and it is frustrating, at times excruciating and demoralising. But while we’re in for a long and often painful season if Saturday is indicative of what is to sporadically turn up, this is football and Fremantle is our team.
This isn’t everyone’s first grief counselling rodeo. We’ve all been here more times than we care to recall. So, you know the drill. Join us as we search for answers, for reasoning and for purpose. Let’s work through the pain on the pod once more.
Previous Episode
Right To Bare Arms
It's JT's constitutional right to bare arms! Time to Restump Podcast the exorcising of the Demons.
The Dees are zero and four so, in theory, this shouldn't be a danger game for us. And to be honest, when you look at how mentally and physically depleted they are, even from a superstitiously purple perspective, it kind of isn't.
They're horribly out of form, there seems plenty not right internally and they're seemingly dropping players to make confusing statements. They’ve pretty much just dropped their recognised forward line what appears to be predominantly based on panic.
Christian Petracca, Clayton Oliver and Jack Jack Viney in the middle being fed by Max Gawn made you feel a little uneasy yesteryear. But, while they’re still highly productive in their own right, they're far from their premiership year selves and they don’t seem to have the same on field support network around them. It's leaving the task up to too few.
While they have 2026 Fremantle forward Kozzi Pickett out there, they look a touch fragile in the scoring department and with him and defender Steven May under injury clouds all week, their defence might be a tad shaky as well.
Is this the dreaded research based arrogant confidence rearing its ugly and unwanted head again? We all know hubris is the downfall of man, but it really is difficult to feel unassured again this week. That all probably says more about where Melbourne is at, rather than it does about our ability to put them away with ease.
On the flip side of Melbourne’s woes, we're in pretty decent shape and maybe, to further rub salt into the Dee's wounds, we've brought in Oscar McDonald to face his former Demons.
While we’re on an upwards trend, we’re probably not playing as well as we appear. We’re 10th in the league for defence and other than Geelong in round one, we haven’t as yet played any team that is top eight for offence. So, while banking the four points is the primary concern, this is an opportunistic game to tune up our system, put some much needed emphasis on tightening up our defence and stack on a few percentage points.
The Restump Investment turned Salvage Operation Club is back again. We’ve unsurprisingly struggled but Jojo has built his term deposit bank to $400. The inevitable fall is getting bigger!
If you’re looking for a good listen this good Friday, what can we tell you, your GPS coordinates are way off. However, if its 30 life wasting minutes of purple prattle you are after, we’ve got you covered! So, come right in, bring your ears and make yourselves at home.
Next Episode
Bleep
Sometimes you have to abandon decorum and just let go with a frenzy of f-bombs! Did the message get through? Time to Restump Podcast the cancelling of the Crow show.
Is JL fed up? Has he snapped or has the gravity of the situation and the panic set in? While we all don’t know what happens behind closed doors, a public expletive riddled outburst seems uncharacteristic, albeit justified. Will it shock the players into gear? Time will tell.
So, once again we find ourselves in the familiar position of atonement. But this Crows outfit isn’t exactly an opponent easy to make amends on. And what if we do right last week’s wrongs? We’ve seen this movie many times before, so it becomes as much about subsequent weeks as it does Friday night. However, let’s concentrate on the now.
With Darcy Fogarty out of the Crow’s line up it makes it a more appealing contest for us but they have plenty of scoring power to cover for him.
While we’ve indicated we’ll be more focused on tightening up on our defence, we’re going to need to make good on that. The Crows are averaging 108 points a game with Walker, Tilthorpe, Rankine, Rachele and Keys all regularly hitting the scoreboard.
There is an anomaly in there though, the 161 points against Essendon skews the average a touch and they have softened the last 3 weeks kicking down to 80 points a game. But you just can’t overlook their firepower, knowing how poor defensively we have been. At the same time, however, they’re letting in 82 points a game so you can score against them.
So, our defensive focus aside, this is effectively two handy scoring teams but with defensive deficiencies. Adelaide are 1st in offence and we’re 5th although that may have something to do with us playing West Coast, Richmond and Melbourne so far. Adelaide are 9th in defence, we’re 11th.
James Aish, Jaegar O’Meara and Bailey Banfield have felt the axe while Chappy returns who we drastically missed last week. Corey Wagner rightfully gets a recall and after getting a ton of it in the WAFL, Quinton Narkle finally gets to make his debut.
The Chief isn’t copping the accusations we upset the Footy Gods last week and Jojo is hiding out at Rottnest! The Restump Financial Hole Digging is getting bigger but that isn’t a reason to stop throwing good money after bad!
It kind of feels like we have arrived at a line in the sand occasion with this game. And there’s no better time to meet such a challenge than on Anzac Day.
We’ve got a very tough, what you imagine will not only be season defining but coach deciding 6 weeks ahead. For so many reasons we simply cannot deliver another less than acceptable performance.
About 24 hours until bouncedown... do you really want to waste one of them listening to our noise?
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