Ben Rutten and Justin Longmuir clash over ‘dangerous’ off-the-ball hits

AFL coaches Ben Rutten and Justin Longmuir haven’t quite seen eye-to-eye on the off-the-ball hits levelled at Zach Merrett on Sunday.

Rutten has coached Essendon since the beginning of this season. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Essendon coach Ben Rutten was glad to see “dangerous” off-the-ball hits, that his star midfielder Zach Merrett had to endure against Fremantle, rewarded with free kicks.

Merrett came in for some very close checking from the Dockers, especially reigning Rising Star Caleb Serong who tagged him all day.

Serong did an effective job, too, restricting Merrett to just 21 disposals – well down on his season average of 31 heading into Sunday’s clash at Marvel Stadium.

“I think the stuff around the ball Zach can take but there were a few incidents off-ball which we were able to get free kicks for downfield and hit the scoreboard,” Rutten said post-match.

“It’s good to see those frees get paid for the off-ball stuff … I don’t think it’s a great look for our game.

“I think we need to let our good players play the game and compete really hard when the ball’s around but it’s dangerous as well when players aren’t expecting to get hit.”

Fremantle supremo Justin Longmuir didn’t quite see eye-to-eye with Rutten. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir saw his team’s battle with Merrett a little differently, and, with a thinly-veiled swipe at the Bombers, suggested the rough play off the ball was a two-way street.

“I don’t want to make a headline. I think their players looked after Merrett behind the ball pretty well,” he said.

Longmuir was proud of the job Serong did on Merrett.

“Merrett still had plenty of the ball but I didn’t see a lot of his real creative ball use that he can have at his best,” Longmuir said.

“He’s clearly one of the better mids in the comp. If we just let him roll around with no pressure on him, he can slice teams so we wanted to shut him out of the game.”

After losing three matches this year by a combined total of just six points, Rutten said it was nice to finally get on the right side of a cliffhanger and praised his side’s ability to “hang in there” when Fremantle had control of the game.

“Up until three-quarter time Freo probably had the majority of play, but I thought that last quarter (we were) getting back to playing our brand of footy,” Rutten said.

“I thought our maturity to be able to do what we needed to do to win the game was good.”

Darcy Parish produced another best-on-ground performance in what his fast-becoming his career-best season, and Rutten was confident the out-of-contract midfielder would re-sign long-term with the club.

Meanwhile, the club was unsure about the severity of Devon Smith’s hamstring injury but it is set to “cost him a couple of weeks.”

Longmuir described the loss as “devastating”, especially considering his team had numerous opportunities to win the match.

“I thought we were the better team for a long period of time, but when it counted at the start and at the end, we weren’t. They started at another level, and they finish at another level and we couldn’t deal with that,” Longmuir said.

“Our ball use forward of centre was sloppy … I felt like we dominated for large periods of the game.”

In some good news for the Dockers, key defender Luke Ryan could be available next week and Alex Pearce might return through the WAFL.

Originally published as Ben Rutten and Justin Longmuir clash over ‘dangerous’ off-the-ball hits