AFL finals: Fremantle Dockers coach unfazed by potential Sydney Swans eyes on training ahead of prelim clash

Justin Longmuir says his Dockers are happy to be an open book as they prepare for Friday’s preliminary final, with the Fremantle coach unfazed by the prospect of Sydney spies at training.

But the WA club wasn’t able get any sets of eyes on how the Swans were tracking on Wednesday, with the club’s SCG practice session closed to onlookers after the first 20 minutes.

Freo opened their doors to spectators in Tuesday’s training run at their Cockburn base ahead of their flight east to Sydney on Wednesday.

When asked about the prospect of rival eyes getting an insight into their preparation, Longmuir was unnerved.

“We just accept that opposition teams are going to have someone at our training,” Longmuir said on SEN.

“We can’t close it, anyway. Even if we do close it, they’re going to park up in the carpark up the stairs.

“We can’t really do much about it. We just cop that. If that helps them, then it helps them.

“But our preparation is just as important. Sometimes, you try and cut things out of your own training because you’re worried about other teams watching, but then you don’t get the preparation either.”

There are potentially several points of interest at Sydney training this week in the lead-up to Friday night’s game, with the likes of Justin McInerney, Joel Amartey and Lewis Melican likely pressing their case for call-ups.

But media was permitted to watch only the first 20 minutes of Wednesday morning’s session before the stands were required to be empty.

“We haven’t got anyone watching their training, because I think they’re training at the SCG and we’re locked out,” Longmuir said.

“If they think that’s a bonus, well then good luck to them.”

Longmuir said Fremantle’s recent familiarity with the SCG would hold his players in good stead for dealing with the ground’s shorter dimensions compared to most AFL venues.

The Dockers have played matches at the SCG in each of the past three seasons before this year, winning twice and suffering a narrow 11-point defeat.

It’s meant the Freo coaching staff haven’t felt the need to replicate the ground’s smaller size on the training track before the players get a practice run at the venue on Thursday.

“We’ve been there a couple of times (recently). Every player that played on the weekend would have played at the SCG,” Longmuir said.

“Certain drills… we didn’t do them (on Tuesday), but certain drills we would cone a wider ground off, just to get that feel.

“We’ll get there to do a captain’s run and familiarise ourselves on Thursday. So we probably didn’t feel the need to do it.”