WHETHER expectations rise on the back of a winning run, or pressure mounts after back-to-back defeats, Justin Longmuir knows that Fremantle will tested in 2025 and pushed to draw on mental skills that have been honed for years.

The Dockers are a flag contender with one of the League's most talented lists, and they enter the season with higher internal and external expectations than ever before under their sixth-year coach.

It's a scenario that is sure to challenge a list that remains relatively young, but it is also one that Longmuir has been planning for with years of pre-season work on the 'mental game'.

"If we go into a season thinking everything's going to go our way, you get punched in the face and you don't know how to react," Longmuir told AFL.com.au.

"Our players need to be aware of the things that are possibly going to get in the way, and the best time to do that is when you're removed from those moments.

"A bit of risk planning or distraction planning or whatever we want to call it, we always do that before the season.

"It might be a time when we lose two in a row and everyone's on our back. How do we navigate that moment?

"Then there's going to be times when we win three, four, five in a row and people take it the other way. We need to make sure we're just as process-orientated throughout those moments and balanced and lean on the things that help us play good footy."

The Dockers invested heavily in the mental side of the game under performance psychologist Neil McLean, focusing on their mindset and utilising handbooks to track, understand and improve their mental preparation.

Vice-captain Caleb Serong credited his work with a performance psychologist for his career-best 2024, which resulted in All-Australian selection and a Doig Medal as club champion.

As the coach in charge of this talented team – and in many ways responsible for shaping it – there will be high expectations on Longmuir in 2025, as well as the pressure that comes with that. 

"I've been thinking about this the last couple of weeks, should I be getting more caught up in expectations?" he said.

"But I see my job as being able to maximise the potential of the playing group. That expectation is always there, and that doesn't really change for me now.

"Perception of where we should finish on the ladder and this and that doesn't really interest me or keep me up at night.

"What keeps me up at night is how can I maximise the potential of the group and set the team up for success?"

When it came to his own role, Longmuir said he had grown more comfortable with pressure as he had evolved as a coach, embracing those moments and letting his strengths in problem solving and setting a clear plan for the team come to the fore.

Analysing his own performance through a critical lens, however, was also something he did frequently, coming across a quote recently that reinforced his views on coaching.

"A quote over the off-season was, 'Every issue is a leadership issue'. So I usually start with me when there's something going wrong or something needs improving, and my role with that.

"I can't ask the players to self-assess their own performances if you're not doing it yourself.

"So I'm always reflecting on how I could run meetings better, how I could plan training better, how training could run better, how the environment could be better set up, and my role within that."

When it came to seeking new ideas from world sport, Longmuir took a break from off-season trips for the first time in years, with a family wedding in Italy and some fishing giving the coach a chance to unwind before jumping back into the hot seat.

He stressed to the players when they returned that the Dockers' game was 90 per cent there after falling from third to 10th in the final four rounds of 2024 to miss finals.

"Sometimes when you finish the season like we did, you can just think, 'We lost the last four games' and go down that pathway and lose sight of the things you did do well.

"It wasn't as though the last four rounds we folded and packed it in and waved the white flag. We fought right to the end of all those games.

"What probably let us down was the ability to execute roles under the heat of the moment, execute the game plan and fall back on the game plan when that pressure of the occasion is at its highest and most important.

"There's probably a bit of game awareness, situation awareness mixed in with that, which we've attacked over the pre-season."

Building more flexibility into players' positions has been a shift for Fremantle over the pre-season as players gain experience and the capacity to take on extra roles.

The Dockers' saw the benefit in moving Hayden Young to the midfield, while Caleb Serong and Andrew Brayshaw made an impact last year when rotating forward throughout games.

Karl Worner and Michael Frederick have now added to the team's depth on the wings.

Changes in the Dockers' game style, however, will only be minor as Longmuir balances a style that he believes can sometimes be misrepresented as overly defensive.

He is confident the maturing of young key forwards Josh Treacy, Jye Amiss and Luke Jackson will give the Dockers the ability to "tie off their work" and kick the higher scores required of a premiership team.

"I feel like there's a preconceived perception of what others think my philosophies are sometimes," he said.

"I get labelled as a defensive coach and really my philosophy is around making sure that we're a balanced team and we make sure that our defence sets our offence up, and our offence sets our defence up, and those two work together.

"I think all good clubs do that and all premiership winning teams and teams that have been at the top for a long period of time have a great balance of offence and defence.

"The team we play in round one (Geelong) kick a big score, but they don't concede a score very often."

Chemistry as a team and individual improvement will be two things worth watching for the Dockers this season after keeping a young and hungry core of players together.

Ranked 11th for average age (24.3) and 15th for games experience (66.4), there is significant scope for a critical mass of players to take big leaps in their careers while already having chemistry as a team.

Whether it's the mental game, individual skills, or how they can execute their role within the team better, Longmuir said his players had chased improvement across the board.

"We kept the same group together and added a few pieces, but largely it's been the same for a little bit now and that's really important," Longmuir said.

"The environment they're driving is to look under every rock to see if they can find something that can help their game.

"I love that curiosity and love how they tap into all the resources at the club to be able to look for those avenues to improve their game. And it hasn't just been one player, it's been the majority of our players."

AFL.com.au's full interview with Dockers coach Justin Longmuir will soon be uploaded to the Your Coach podcast feed. Subscribe now to hear from your club's coach ahead of the 2025 AFL season