Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir is adamant the Dockers’ time will come and they will come out the other side stronger they pick up the pieces in the wake of their crushing AFL grand final defeat.
Longmuir spoke of his overwhelming pride in the players after they fell marginally short of a maiden flag triumph after Brisbane came from the clouds to kick four straight goals later and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Speaking at a club function in the aftermath of the defeat, Longmuir vowed the devastating defeat would not break the club as they will go back to the drawing board next season.
“I know our time will come. I know the character we’ve got within our footy club will bounce back out of this,” he said.
“But I don’t think that’s the time for it now. The time is to sit in this, get around each other, have your teammates’ back, have your brothers’ back and the time will come for us to move on and get better and learn from it and I know this group will.”
Longmuir said while the defeat stung tremendously, he took plenty of courage and belief from fact it took an unbelievable late-game hot streak from the newly-minted three-peat champions to beat them.
“I’ve probably got over the devastation and just feel really proud of the efforts of not only the players but I just thought we had a real crack and gave it our best,” he said.
“In the end, on reflection, we’ll look at it and we got beaten by one of the better teams of all-time who took some unbelievable moments in the last four minutes to be able to beat us and it took something unbelievable to beat us.
“That’s how we’ll look at it in due course.
“To play our best footy of the finals series on the biggest stage was an unbelievable achievement. I’m so proud of the players for doing that and I’m just so proud we could handle the week.
“A lot was made of Brisbane being there and they would handle the week better than us and those sorts of things but we embraced the week, accepted what we needed to, embraced the normal of the week and came out and played our best footy.”
Longmuir also hailed the impact of the Fremantle fans who crossed the Nullarbor in spite of eye-watering airline price hikes and made their presence felt once they landed in Melbourne as they painted the streets purple in the lead-up to the game.
“I think everyone understands how much the Purple Army have got behind us at Optus this year and they’ve really rocked that joint and we’ve averaged nearly 55,000 at Optus and made it such a home ground advantage,” he said.
“To see everyone come to Melbourne and rock the parade and rock the MCG and get behind the team, we’ve got a really passionate supporter group and that’s what hurts a little bit deep down.
“Everyone who supports us and has come along the journey with us, it feels like we let them down a little bit.”
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