Mark Duffield: Time Fremantle turn Nat Fyfe and David Mundy into one Dockers weapon as Will Brodie takes over

Two things Fremantle should accept if they are to make the return of Nat Fyfe a positive rather than an obstruction. First: Will Brodie is currently their No.1 big-bodied inside midfielder. Second: The best way to make Fyfe’s return a positive might be to take two great, but compromised players (Fyfe and David Mundy) and try and turn them into one weapon. It is no surprise that Fremantle’s midfield has spluttered a bit since Fyfe’s return. The dual Brownlow medallist is underdone. It will take him a while to find peak match fitness. He will have to be wheeled out week after week now and recover as well as play. It might be that he doesn’t find full match fitness at any point this year. West Coast brought a group of senior players back into their team in the back third of 2021 and could not get them up and running. Fortunately for Fremantle, Fyfe is just one, not a group but his battle to find form will be a week to week one. Hopefully in a fortnight’s time he is not spotting umpires out of the corner of his eye and deciding to kick the ball to them. Mundy is 36 and will turn 37 in three weeks’ time. That’s just an unavoidable fact. For much of the past four years it has looked like his birth certificate was lying. And in the past two matches he has looked every bit that old. He has lacked his usual surety, his kicking has lacked penetration and his decision making has been sketchy. Discussions around whether Mundy should play on in 2023 are nonsensical. Save it for the end of the season and he would want to be playing a lot better than he did against Hawthorn and Carlton for there to even be a discussion. When Fyfe returned to the team for the clash with Hawthorn, people wondered how it would affect Brodie, the set of steak knives in a trade deal with Gold Coast who has somehow transformed into filet mignon at Fremantle. It’s the wrong question. The question is how Fyfe and Mundy work around Brodie who currently is the Dockers No.1 inside ball winner and is likely to be for most of the rest of this season. The Dockers effectively know this, even if they haven’t admitted it to themselves. A couple of weeks ago I did the report cards for Fremantle players to the mid-season break and the one queried by a club insider was the B+ given to Brodie. He thought it should have been an A. Fyfe might be the No.1 guy with a clear run next year but he is coming off a preparation interrupted not once but three times: By major shoulder surgery last year, by an infection which followed that surgery and finally by a back problem earlier this year that required more surgery. And Mundy needs to be managed. The fact that he has been a high quality tireless work horse up until now does not mean he will continue to be forever. Against Hawthorn in round 13. Fyfe had 22 disposals, six clearances and kicked a goal, Brodie had 22 with just two clearances and Mundy had 23 disposals and one clearance. Against Carlton in round 15, Brodie had 36 disposals with five clearances, Fyfe had 11 disposals with two clearances and Mundy had 13 without a clearance. The Dockers got cooked 44-30 at stoppages and 14-5 at centre clearances. They were the stats that set the tone for the match. Not all of this was about the inside mids. The Dockers got belted on the outside of the contest where Sam Walsh, Matt Kennedy and Zac Fisher all had big games for the Blues. Fremantle’s wing structure, without the injured Blake Acres, got exposed. Acres was sorely missed: Now there is a sentence you didn’t expect to read at the start of the season. Brodie is 23. He slotted into the Dockers midfield seamlessly and is improving rapidly. Let the young beast have his head and see where it takes him and the Dockers engine room. He was big in Fremantle victories over flag contenders Melbourne and Brisbane. And as for the other two, great players as they are, accept their limitations for now. Surely they can be managed, and can help manage each other, with the emphasis on quality rather than quantity and the hope that what they contribute together adds up to something significant. It might be Fremantle’s best chance of getting Fyfe to September in good enough nick to have a real impact then. It might also be their best chance of getting Mundy there in good enough shape to give us one last reminder of his talent. Mundy, according to some, is the best big-game player Fremantle has ever had. How Fremantle wold love to see it once or twice more in the biggest games.