Fremantle Dockers captain Alex Pearce reveals Justin Longmuir hadn’t raised ‘stat stuffing’ issue with players

Fremantle captain Alex Pearce has responded to coach Justin Longmuir’s scathing accusations his players were too occupied with stuffing their own stats sheet against the Western Bulldogs on Sunday. A fired-up Longmuir made the unprompted comments at a press conference on Thursday when asked about Neil Erasmus’ form in the WAFL. “There is no doubt, in the seniors at the weekend that guys were more worried about how many possessions they got than how they competed in the contest, how they pressured the opposition and how they defended,” he said. Pearce said he understood what Longmuir was talking about, but revealed the coach’s concerns had not been aired in those terms in front of the playing group during their brutal review this week. The skipper joked it was “very nice to hear” the comments as a low-possession player and that “JL and I are on the same page there”. “I get what he’s talking about, I’m not sure what the question referred to, but we have spoken a lot this week about what we value as a team and what’s important and that starts with team defence and contest and I think if you ask most teams around the comp that’s what they’ll say,” Pearce told SEN on Friday morning. “We didn’t quite go into that sort of language, but this week the focus is team defence and contest, which is what it has been all year. It clearly fell away for us last weekend.” Pearce will line up alongside Hugh Davies for the first time when the Claremont product makes his debut against Gold Coast on Sunday. The All-Australian contender was full of praise for the 20-year-old defender and his physicality. “Hughy Davies is a young kid who has been working so hard for the past couple of years and played some good footy towards the end of last year and has just really kept stacking performances this season,” Pearce said. “He’s a bloke who you really want to play with. When we rock up to work on a Monday and review both Peel and AFL games, he’s always in the clips putting his body on the line and really excited that he’s got his opportunity.”