FREMANTLE coach Mark Harvey was glowing in his praise of debutant Rhys Palmer after his side's loss to Hawthorn at Subiaco Oval but not so of Chris Tarrant and other key players who are not performing.
Harvey isn’t terribly concerned with his team's situation, despite the two losses to start the season, but realises his side is three or four goals off those top sides like Collingwood and Hawthorn.
After three possessions against Collingwood in round one, Tarrant again struggled with only three kicks, four handballs, two marks and no goals. Harvey would not guarantee his place against West Coast next Saturday.
"Once again he was disappointing and we need him to stand up. We aren’t taking enough marks in and outside of our forward 50, there was limited supply, and we played with forwards close to home, so it didn’t make his job easy," Harvey said.
"We will have a look at that situation (of Tarrant playing next week). I said to the side that I didn’t want to have to be moving the side around just to gain an advantage because we're fighting the scoreboard.
"I'd prefer to settle the team and not move anyone from one extreme to the other.
"(Luke) McPharlin did a good job on (Lance) Franklin when he was down there, but we need another key forward to hold down a position regularly.
"(Matthew) Pavlich is finding some form; he played on the ball for most of the game and went forward to kick goals, so that's pleasing."
The likes of Matthew Carr, Michael Johnson, Brett Peake, David Mundy and Ryan Crowley also had little impact on the game and Harvey will be demanding more.
"They are guys that have been around for four or five years and need to be the strength in the team, particular against guys the same age or younger," he said.
"We need them to dominate the positions that they play and we are going to have to demand that of them. They have to fight through the situation of having an ordinary day. We rely on our middle tier of player to arrest situations and gain momentum for us."
On the positive side, Palmer had 22 possessions and kicked a tremendous running goal late in the game and Harvey couldn’t have been more pleased with his performance.
"Palmer stamped himself tonight and for a kid to do that in his first game was terrific," he said.
"He was sidestepping players late in the game which is always a good sign and hopefully that can relieve some of that midfield pressure, but you don’t want to be putting too much of that pressure on a first-year player."
Harvey knows the pressure will be high on both Fremantle and West Coast ahead of next Saturday's derby and is confident his team can step up to the challenge.
"I expect what I usually do in derby week. Plenty of media and an intense build-up to what is a fantastic game and the challenge of rising to that. The group is under a bit of pressure, but every club is," he said.
"It doesn’t matter with this upcoming game how either side performed the previous week, it has the intrigue with the fighting ability of both sides to have the talking rights about town. That’s always interesting, but we can't get sidetracked with that."
