Fremantle star Nat Fyfe on his 2024, how Dockers rise from form slump

It takes an even braver man to redefine his own ceiling after several years cruelled by injury.

But Nat Fyfe is as courageous as they come. And with each game he strings together, the two-time Brownlow medallist feels as though he’s closing in on his new peak, turning to new means of measuring his own performance.

“It looks different to round one,” Fyfe said. “I’m trying to work out what metrics to judge performance on and mostly it’s the performance we have as a group and how I feel physically out there in terms of what I think of capable I’m doing at the time and what my body allows me to do.

“That’s getting more and more expansive each time I get through a full game. And pleasingly, my expectations in myself are gradually rising again, in my own individual performance and where that can go over the rest of this season and next year.

“It’s nice to have played all six of those games and I feel like each week I’m building confidence and form, really slowly.

“It’s nice to be able to go into the start of a week feeling good and being able to train and continue to work with the other midfielders in our team on improving.”

Against West Coast, Fyfe was one of Fremantle’s best in a midfield that was sorely beaten. The 32-year-old had a game-high 13 clearances, turning half of his 26 disposals into a net gain for the Dockers.

Fremantle won clearances 42-36 but the better indicator was contested possession, an area the Eagles dominated 132-108 en route to a 37-point win.

Adamant that the midfield capitulation was an outlier, Fyfe said the Dockers were eager to bounce back against a powerful Western Bulldogs’ onball outfit on Saturday night.

“I think it’s a really big challenge,” he said. “Their win/loss potentially isn’t reflective of how well they’re actually going and they’ve got some All-Australian midfielders in (Marcus) Bontempelli and (Tom) Liberatore should come back and (Jack) Macrae.

“This will be a big challenge for some of our younger midfielders and our midfield in general but we’ve got (midfield coach) Joel Corey on our side. He was at the Dogs previously. This is a challenge we’re up for.”

And if that means a match-up with Bontempelli, Fyfe is up for the fight.

“He’s playing some good footy,” he said. “I always look forward to playing against and testing myself against the best players who are in good form.”

Fyfe also promised Fremantle’s forward line was on the verge of realising its firepower, admitting that the loss of Michael Frederick (hamstring) and Sam Switkowski (concussion) had been underestimated. The Dockers will also be without Jye Amiss against the Bulldogs after he suffered a concussion early against the Eagles.

“Our forward line mix has been changing every week,” he said. “There’s been some frustration around our scoring.

“We want to capitalise more on our entries and having a rotation of forwards doesn’t allow that synergy to build. There’s some injury factors that are out of our control but hopefully, we can get some continuity with the six so we can be more predictable with our forward entries and kick scores from that.”

Fyfe is also adamant that the Dockers can bounce back from three straight losses, conceding that Fremantle unintentionally rode an emotional rollercoaster into the derby.

“They’re all big games,” Fyfe said. “There is no game in isolation.

“We’ve had a road trip to Adelaide where we played some really good footy but didn’t get the results. It’s not an excuse but there’s a cumulative effect of playing in big games and not quite getting the result.

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“We need to acknowledge that at some level, coming back from Adelaide we didn’t respond as well as we would’ve liked to.

“You never know with these things. We’re human. You play games. The emotions are really close to the surface and you don’t quite get the result which means that the review doesn’t go the way you’d like it to go and potentially there is a cumulative effect of putting in maximum effort and not getting those results.

“I think if you look at our season other than the weekend, we’ve been really consistent in our performance.”