Eagles pin hopes on stopping Sandilands
West Coast plan to go after Aaron Sandilands in Sunday’s western derby in an attempt to blunt Fremantle’s midfield dominance, according to assistant coach Justin Longmuir.
The Dockers have been one of the competition’s form sides across the opening two games, with Brownlow Medal favourite Nat Fyfe and veteran David Mundy helping take the engine room to a new level.
But Longmuir, a former Dockers player who is now the Eagles forwards coach, said he believed Sandilands was still the heart of Freo’s midfield.
The 211cm Sandilands leads the competition for hit-outs with 86 and the Dockers are equal fifth in clearances (82).
Longmuir said if Eagles duo Nic Naitanui and Scott Lycett could restrict the ruck giant’s influence at Domain Stadium on Sunday it would go a long way towards securing the club’s first derby victory since 2012.
“They’re just an outstanding side across the board,” Longmuir told 91.3 SportFM.
“They’re in that age bracket where they’re pushing for a premiership and I think on average they’re probably two years older than us, so they’ve got a lot more experience than us at the moment.
“If you just look at the raw numbers it’s quite scary.
“But I still think a lot of their work starts with Sandilands. In the pre-season when he was missing they struggled a little bit and as soon as he’s come back in the side they’ve really dominated every side they’ve played.
“Like Nic is for us, Sandilands is the barometer for them.
“More than likely it’ll come down to the ruck battle, so hopefully (ruck coach Dean Cox) can put his head into the computer this week and come up with a strategy against Sandilands.”
Statistically, West Coast have been the second-best centre clearance team after two games, sitting behind Adelaide with an average of 16 per game. Longmuir said if they could at least match the Dockers’ bigger bodies at the stoppages they would be a chance of causing an upset.
“It’s not going to be a pretty game, I wouldn’t have thought, around stoppages,” he said.
“But if we can break even and get our share going forward, then we can make them defend.”
The Eagles injury list got longer this week, with Scott Selwood (six weeks) and Simon Tunbridge (three months) sidelined with ankle injuries.
However, Longmuir said star forward Jack Darling (foot) was inching closer to a return.
He said the 22-year-old was expected to resume full training at the end of next week but could be forced to return through WAFL partner club East Perth.
