Speaking to Eagle Eye TV after the coach’s review of Tuesday’s NAB Challenge match against Fremantle, Longmuir says there will be some major changes to the line-up that demolished the Dockers.
Video: Watch the full match highlights here.
“We’ll probably rest a few of our senior players,” he said.
“There’ll be a couple of senior midfielders, a couple of senior backs and a couple of senior forwards that probably won’t make the trip, which is really exciting.
Video: Chris Masten puts on a master class.
“It gives opportunity to a lot of young players, and those young players have worked their guts out over the pre-season and deserve an opportunity.
“It’ll be interesting and we’ll face a really strong Sydney side who’ll be getting ready for round one, and that’s our aim as well.”
There were 14 individual goal kickers against Fremantle, together scoring over 20 goals. But Longmuir was more pleased with their team work, rather than the big total.
“The most pleasing thing is that they united really well, and they worked as a group of six,” he said.
“There was no real individual stand-outs, they were able to work offensively together, and they were able to put some real good pressure on the Fremantle backline when they won it back.”
Video: Post-match interview with Jack Darling.
Pre-season matches are always a difficult beast to approach; how hard to go, who to play, how long to play them, is winning everything?
Longmuir says it’s a balancing act.
“First of all you try to get a certain amount of minutes into your players, and not pushing them over the edge,” said Longmuir.
“You never really know what to expect from your opposition in pre-season games, you don’t know how they’re going to start.
“McPharlin and Pavlich started as subs, we didn’t know that before the game.
“We took the opportunity on the weekend to focus on our own game, and the result was good.”
