Fremantle Defender Jordan Clark denies the Dockers were too comfortable heading into last week’s embarrassing loss against the Bulldogs.
Fremantle smashed Melbourne by 92-points in round 12 before the bye with many starting to see them as serious contenders in the finals race.
Upon return the Dockers failed to get up against the Bulldogs, suffering a costly 67-point defeat which could result in them missing the top four.
Many fans and experts have suggested Fremantle got too ahead of themselves or comfortable following their win over Melbourne, and it reflected in last Saturday’s match – something Clark emphatically denies.
“I know from my point of view, I certainly wasn’t comfortable heading into the game and that’s for sure,” he told SportFM.
“Being able to put a finger on exactly what it was is probably a bit difficult in terms of what exactly it was.
“Everyone’s going to have their point of view and I think we can just get back to the fact that what we did stuff on the weekend wasn’t good enough.
“Regardless of what everyone thinks it was, it shouldn’t happen again and it wasn’t acceptable at all.”
Star midfielder Marcus Bontempelli was critical in locking away the win for the Bulldogs, tearing the game apart with 30 touches and three goals.
With taggers coming into the forefront of the game Fremantle’s lack of a tag has been questioned after Bontempelli was allowed to produce a masterclass.
With the Gold Coast Suns looming this weekend, Clark says Fremantle did not intend for Bontempelli to run amok and will plan better this weekend.
“The plan certainly wasn’t to let him run around and rip the game open. It’s an area that we have to fix up as well,” he said.
“It wasn’t such a tag, it’s more of a team focus. There are 18 blokes on the ground at any one time and when Bont’s standing by himself, at least one of us could probably go and try and man him up or stop his impact.
“I don’t think there’s any pointing fingers or blaming anyone, it was a whole team thing and it’s on us to fix up and get right next week.”
“Looking forward to the Gold Coast game… We’ll focus on ourselves but we’ll look to see how we can negate the opposition strength as you do every week.”
Clark believes the defeat at the hands of the Bulldogs won’t dent Fremantle’s confidence too much, rather it will be a ‘wake-up call’ for them to refocus in the second half of the season.
“It’s obviously a fair smack between the eyes when you lose a game like that,” he said.
“It sometimes can be a nice wake-up call and a little moment in the year to reset and refocus.
“I don’t think we should lose confidence because we know that our best footy and our system is proven that it can hold up against the best teams in the comp.
“If you look at it with a lens like that we shouldn’t lose too much confidence, we just need to get back to playing that system and our brand of footy because we know it does stack up.”
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