WHEN you miss the top four by percentage and then lose a heartbreaking elimination final by one point, you can understand why the little things are the big things for Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir. 

The Dockers produced their best home and away season in 11 years in 2025, but lapses within games and an inability to execute the small details over and over meant they walked away without a finals win when they felt they had more to give.   

For Longmuir, the second quarter of what turned into a classic, high-pressure final against Gold Coast encapsulated the Dockers' inconsistency in 2026, leading to a pre-season that has focused in on the "little things". 

As thrilling as the team's many come-from-behind wins were, there's clearly an understanding that those efforts will only take the club so far, and consistency throughout games is needed for the Dockers to deliver in 2026. 

If they can get it right, the coach is confident the Dockers can push for just the second Grand Final appearance in their history, and their first since 2013. 

"The game requires detail … and there's millions of little details we got wrong [last season]. We just weren't consistent enough with the application of what we need, and the final is a good example of that," Longmuir told AFL.com.au ahead of his seventh season in charge. 

"Our second quarter, and particularly the last 15 minutes of the second quarter, we fell apart with our attention to detail. 

"It can be as little as one metre here versus one metre there with your defensive positioning or your running pattern, so if we get those things right off the field, hopefully we can get them right on the field. 

"It's a number of little things, but the little things are the big things, right? If we get all the little things right, then the bigger picture will take care of itself."

While the final contests against Gold Coast will remain vivid for Fremantle fans, Longmuir zeroed in on that second quarter as a starting point for the Dockers to reflect on their season. 

It was a quarter that saw the team concede 45 of the Suns' 80 points for the game, with the coach able to point to similar lapses throughout the season that cost the Dockers valuable percentage in wins and led to a view that they lacked ruthlessness when the game was on their terms. 

The message on day one of pre-season set the standard for what has turned into a successful summer that has Longmuir confident his team is better placed than 12 months ago. 

"I talked about excellence in role from day one of pre-season and making sure that players demand excellence of themselves in their role but also demand excellence of others in in their roles around them," Longmuir said. 

"The first thing that drops away when we lose momentum in game is the contest drops away and then our roles drop away. 

"Some of those roles drop away because players have made a mistake and they're going into their head and don't want the ball, and some of those roles drop away because players want to change the game and try and do too much. 

"So we've talked about demanding excellence in our roles, and I think we've seen an improvement in that area."

Fremantle's 2025 campaign included a period of high pressure after a shock loss to St Kilda in round eight that saw both the team and the coach under the microscope.

It became a turning point in the season that further bonded the group and led to a run of 11 wins in 12 games, providing valuable lessons that will carry into 2026. 

"Sometimes we shy away from the challenges and we don't want to bring up the things that have made us feel uncomfortable in the past, but realistically that's what makes you as a club and a playing group and a team, ultimately," Longmuir said. 

"You go through those challenging times together and it can bond you and help you grow. Hopefully we're not in that position again, but if we are in those challenging positions again, we can draw on that experience of having gone through that together and rectify it quicker."

Longmuir took the opportunity to travel to the United States at the end of the season, visiting the NBA's San Antonio Spurs, NFL's New Orleans Saints, and Louisiana State University's sporting programs with development coach Tendai Mzungu. 

It was a trip that highlighted how the AFL is setting a high standard with coaching practices and team culture but trailing other leagues when it comes to technology and resourcing. 

"Every time I go to America, I always come back saying that the things that money can buy, they do really well. The resourcing, facilities, technology is just eye-opening," Longmuir said.

"For instance, you go to the basketball teams and the players will walk out into the basketball court and they've got eye tracking. So they track their eyes and know who the player is and then they track every shot that they have on the basketball court.

"We'd love to implement that with our kicking, so you come off at the end of training and the cameras have identified how many kicks, marks, handballs each player has had, but also the efficiency.

"The Spurs a couple of years ago identified that a lot of their missed shots were short, so they wanted to hit the back of the rim with their shots and that was all done off the data that they get from that technology. 

"It'd be great to have access to that type of data and technology after a training session …. if you came off and looked at a certain handball drill and it was done at 95 per cent efficiency, that would show me that that's not game-like and you need to add more defenders. 

"That's a really simplistic example, but there's a lot of ways you could use that data. 

"That's the sort of technology that they invest in, but I think the investment for that is around a million dollars. We don't quite have that at the moment, but hopefully one day."

When it comes to recharging out of season, getting away from technology and onto the water is Longmuir's preferred method, but a demersal fishing ban across a large stretch of the WA coast forced the coach to adjust. 

Some family trips to Rottnest Island did the trick before returning to launch a pre-season that has balanced working hard with having fun, using a "pre-season Olympics" to distract from a gruelling summer. 

The Dockers try to get the right mix of fun into their program, but Longmuir knows exactly how the team will maximise its enjoyment this year in a season that promises plenty. 

"What makes a sporting club fun is winning," the coach said.  

"So we can go out and have fun, but fun for me was going out there together, competing our backsides off, having each other's back, and then at the end of the day being able to look each other in the eye and know I gave it all for the team today and I know you did as well.

"Win, lose or draw, you can be really satisfied with that, and for me that's fun."