Fremantle senior coach Justin Longmuir faces task of turning expectation into reality after 50 games at helm

Expectation is a wonderful thing. Nothing excites quite like presumption and the prevailing belief something will come to fruition. But in football, we’re told to expect the unexpected. Dubbed the greatest reality show on earth, the AFL is a place where underdogs can prevail, fairytales can happen and the most far-fetched dreams can become a reality. Fremantle senior coach Justin Longmuir is in the middle of that pendulum. Last week against Hawthorn, he coached his 50th AFL game and with a 13-point win, emerged with a 25-25 record. For now, Longmuir’s coaching career is at equilibrium both in record and the perfect cocktail of expectation and unforeseen. In Longmuir’s third season as coach, the Dockers look destined to return to finals for the first time since 2015. Fans are pre-emptively inking ‘Flagmantle’ tattoos and booking flights to Melbourne in that fabled last week of September. The club haven’t put any limitations on what can be achieved this season but they also have the next decade in mind. The only thing better than one premiership is multiple and if history is any guide, Longmuir could be the man to deliver Fremantle’s first and maybe even second and third. After 50 games, Longmuir sits 83rd on a table of head coaching records after a half-century at the helm. His square ledger ranks him equal alongside West Coast premiership mentor John Worsfold who also ran even after 50 games. Both boast better records than two of the millennium’s best coaches. Four-time premiership mastermind Alastair Clarkson finished with an 18-32 (36 per cent) record after 50 games and his apprentice Damian Hardwick was worse at 16-1-33 (32 per cent). Add in two-time Jock McHale medal winner Mark Thompson (48 per cent) and of the four multiple premiership coaches in the past two decades, Longmuir has had a better start to his career than three of them, excluding Leigh Matthews. The fairytale, when it’s written, of Fremantle’s breakthrough flag will paint Longmuir as a knight in shining armour. But after saving the purple-clad princess from her far away tower, the townspeople will demand more. “Absolutely he can become Fremantle’s first premiership coach,” said former teammate Paul Hasleby. “There’s no reason why it can’t happen soon. “If it doesn’t happen in next four years, we’d probably be disappointed. “The pressure and expectation on Fremantle has quickly changed from just making a grand final to winning one.” Longmuir the player Longmuir grew up in Koorda, 236km east of Perth in the north-eastern Wheatbelt, dreaming of running the family farm. In a town of less than 300 people, at times he was the only student in his grade at school. But Koorda was where his values of hard work, loyalty and humility were shaped. Longmuir wasn’t your typical footballer. At age 17, he started playing with West Perth’s colts because he was good at football, not because he wanted to make a career of it. By the end of 1998, he was an AFL player after Fremantle pounced with pick two of the national draft. When Longmuir arrived at the club as a blank canvas, he was so bereft of power couldn’t complete one 20 kilogram bench press. “When I came down I was so raw. I was years off being able to execute my role and mix it with some of the players that I had to mix it against,” Longmuir reflected on the Purple Patch podcast in 2020. “Something that I regret to some degree, was not putting myself out there to learn from the experiences of those that had been before me. “I was a shy country boy that didn’t put myself out there enough. I wasn’t a sponge, I didn’t learn as well as I should have from the older boys.” As a versatile forward/ruckman, Longmuir debuted in the final game of his first season and spent the next few years winning over the purple army. There was that moment in 2005, when the laconic country kid wrote his name into Fremantle folklore with a blockbuster mark and goal after the full-time siren. Then there was 2006, when the Dockers qualified for their maiden preliminary final, eventually falling to Sydney. Buried beneath the thrill of a successful season was however the devastating toll of a degenerative knee injury. Longmuir completed just two main training sessions throughout the entire campaign as the injury worsened and eventually cost him his career. “Although I was playing most weeks, I didn’t really enjoy the season because of the pain I was in,” he said. “I got to the end of that year and I felt like I was done mentally, to be honest. It was a really frustrating year and a real grind.” Robbed of his career, Longmuir had to find another avenue to stay involved in football. “The years after he retired, watching his teammates when he should’ve been in the prime of his career, that was quite tough for him,” Hasleby said. “He could’ve been a club great but instead it was all taken away from him. That leaves you unfulfilled and drives you towards something that can fill that hole. “When you’re playing, there’s no real inkling at that stage of anyone’s coaching ambitions because you’re so invested in what’s in front of you. But his ability to read the play and his knowledge of the game was as good as I’ve seen from any key position player. “His injury created his passion for coaching in an attempt to fulfil what he was missing out on.” Longmuir the assistant Bill Monaghan remembers sitting in the stands at the 2009 WAFL colts grand final when Longmuir pointed out a skinny Tiger with enormous potential. Soon after Longmuir had retired, Monaghan offered him a return home to West Perth and his first coaching role. A talent scout for Fremantle at the time, then recruiting boss Phil Smart gave Longmuir the license to balance recruiting with life on the side of the fence. “We were pretty keen to get him involved straight out of the system,” Monaghan said. “He had a passion for coaching and was good at it, but like a lot of young coaches, there were areas to work on.” Working predominantly with the Falcons taller players, West Perth finished the season in the top four but bowed out in the semi-finals. The pair reunited a few weeks later on grand final day. “I remember sitting with him at a colts grand final and he said ‘come and watch this kid. I want you to have a look at him. I reckon he’s a gun but I’m not sure if we’re going to take him early,’” Monaghan said. “It was Nat Fyfe and he kicked six goals. He was so passionate about that side of the game as well. Fyfe was raw. He was skinny, underdeveloped but had a good set of hands. And Justin was bullish on him.” Longmuir spent just one season with the Falcons but it was clear he was on the right path. “It hasn’t surprised us he’s been as successful coach,” Monaghan said. “I think his public speaking and ability to talk to big groups of people was an area that he had to work on. It didn’t come naturally to him. “But his knowledge and understanding of the game was first class. And working with individuals was something he was always good at.” Soon, it was time for Longmuir to spread his wings, eventually landing at West Coast as a development coach under Worsfold. When Peter Sumich defected to Fremantle ahead of the 2012 season, Longmuir was appointed the Eagles’ forwards coach. When Adam Simpson arrived, Longmuir continued to make steady process and eventually developed the confidence to run meetings, draped in head coach material. Longmuir’s football allegiance was as purple as it comes but for his own personal development, he had to leave Perth. Nathan Buckley had just survived an audit on his position as Collingwood head coach but the searching review concluded the Magpies’ coaching department needed a shake-up. Longmuir was appointed Collingwood’s backline coach ahead of the 2018 season, tasked on grand final day with plotting the downfall of his former West Coast pupils. It was also in Victoria the seeds of his defensive philosophy were planted. “Very calm and very matter of fact, a lifelong learner and open-minded but also very clear on his beliefs and what he wanted to see,” Buckley told the AFL record.. “His ideas around transition play, defence leading into offence was really strong and you can see that in Freo now. “He was able to build relationships with the players really quickly. We have him the autonomy to each defence and he had time with the entire group to each the way we wanted to set up around the ground.” Longmuir the coach When asked how he has seen his coaching tenure so far, Longmuir pauses in a moment of thought. Not because he’s trying to pack the last two and a half years into one succinct answer but because the 50 game milestone snuck up on him. If things had gone to plan, Longmuir should’ve marked the occasion with arguably the finest win of his career – a 38 point victory over reigning premiers Melbourne at the MCG. Instead, two weeks in the AFL’s health and safety protocols earlier in the season pushed the milestone back a fortnight. “I didn’t even know that,” Longmuir said of his half-century. “The first couple of years have been tough with COVID protocols and it’s probably something I didn’t prepare for in my apprenticeship. It’s hard to prepare for something like that. “I feel like I’ve come into a good environment where I’ve got a lot of alignment with the key pillars at the club and a lot of support from those around me. I feel very fortunate on that part. “I feel like we’ve grown every year and this season is probably a reflection on that. “As a club we’ve grown as well and improved on a lot of different areas across my first two and a bit years. That’s put us in the position we’re in.” That position, 10-3 and right in contention for a top four spot, is one Longmuir innately believed was possible from the day he took over as head coach in 2019. In his first press conference back in purple, Longmuir preached the need for better skills, a balance between offence and defence and his desire to become a strong contested-ball team. Everything he forecast on that day in late September 2019 has since come to fruition, including his call for fans to come along for the ride. “We are all in this together,” Longmuir said at a point where fans were still processing the sudden departures of Ross Lyon and Steve Rosich. “If you asked me what the Fremantle Football Club stands for, it is the passion of the fans.” A fortnight ago, 47,214 fans – the third highest non-derby crowd in club history - turned out to watch Fremantle defeat yet another premiership fancy in Brisbane. Earlier this month, the club ticked over 50,000 members, the purple army growing bigger by the week as the Dockers announce themselves as genuine premiership contenders. And while the bigger tests are still yet to come, you can only tame the challenges that are put in front of you and Longmuir has done so with flying colours. Last year, Fremantle couldn’t handle the thrill of a big win. The Dockers’ worst losses directly followed their best victories but this season, Longmuir has managed to level the emotional playing field. Habits of the past threatened to derail Fremantle’s season when the hype spilled over and back-to-back wet weather losses ended a six-game winning streak. A seething Longmuir admitted his players had been “getting way ahead of themselves,” welcoming the reality check. The response was emphatic and Fremantle defeated the Demons and Lions in the following fortnight. “That was something we did address in our team meetings after those comments were made,” Fremantle defender Jordan Clark said. “Everyone knew we needed to make amends for the way we approached those two games we dropped. “But afterwards, there was a drive to get back to winning and leave no stones unturned to get back on the winners list. “It’s a credit to JL and how he managed that period to drive us and get us going again. It didn’t take much.” It’s taken two years, but the Longmuir way is finally embedded at Fremantle. The club believe, and have put on the public record, that a premiership will dock within the next four years. “He’s been a really important appointment,” Fremantle chief executive Simon Garlick said. “At that time, with a new CEO and a new senior coach, there was a period of uncertainty. You add in to that the challenges that COVID brought and it’s been a challenging two years but he’s done a fantastic job to date. “We’ve seen how steady and measured he is. He’s technically a really strong coach and certainly bases his style on relationships and building rapport which is an important piece of armoury in a modern day coaching. “It’s game 50 but hopefully there’s plenty more to come.”