AFL 2024: Fremantle Dockers star Nat Fyfe’s ideal position up for discussion after Lachie Schultz exit

Midfield or forward? The great Nat Fyfe debate is set to open again after Lachie Schultz’s departure, writes MARK DUFFIELD.

There are serious doubts over Fyfe’s ability to be a forward. Picture: Getty Images

Nathan Fyfe is not a rebel without a cause but rather a fading champion without a clearly defined role at Fremantle.

The debate on where Fremantle can best use Fyfe has turned full circle – from the midfielder everyone thought should go forward, to the unproven forward everyone thought should move back to the midfield.

It is where he has played his best AFL football – and where he won his two Brownlow medals – but could the unexpected departure of Lachie Schultz to Collingwood turn the debate again?

Where will Fyfe be most needed by Fremantle in 2024?

Midfield or forward?

As the late, great Yankees catcher Yogi Berra famously said: “It’s deja vu all over again.”

Schultz and Fyfe are hardly like-for-like types. Fyfe would not bring Schultz’s tackle pressure and Schultz, at 178 centimetres, is 13 centimetres shy of Fyfe’s imposing 191 centimetre frame.

But Schultz was the most likely of Fremantle’s smaller forwards to crash a pack in the air if no tall forward was available. He was their best contested ball small forward.

Nat Fyfe doesn’t have a clearly defined role at Fremantle. Picture: Getty Images

Fyfe, at his best, was arguably the best midfield aerialist the game has seen and behind only Dustin Martin as the AFL’s best contested ballplayer. He would bring an aerial presence and contested ball winning ability to the Dockers attack.

Do the Dockers have the players to cover for the loss of Schultz?

They have small forwards. Michael Walters, Michael Frederick and Sam Switkowski are all important members of the Dockers best team. Sam Sturt’s 17 goals from 14 games included 12 goals in the last seven games with only one goalless game in that time.

At 23, Sturt is a work in progress but he is progressing. Late in the season, bustling first year player Tom Emmett played two games which produced four goals and serious ground level pressure. He does appeal as Schultz’s replacement but it is only a two game sample size.

The Dockers have a lot of players who can play small forward roles. Between them, they account for most of the attributes that Schultz offered. It was just that Schultz offered them all in the one player.

The unexpected departure of Lachie Schultz to Collingwood has reignited the debate over Fyfe’s best position. Picture: Getty Images

Walters kicked as many goals as Schultz in 2023 (33) but he is 32 and will be 33 by the time the 2024 season starts.

Switkowski brought the bustle and pressure Schultz brought, laying 89 tackles to Schultz’s 95. But he also kicked just 16 goals, less than half of Schultz’s tally.

Frederick kicked 26 goals, not that far off Schultz’s productivity in front of the big sticks. He is a very good finisher but he laid just 32 tackles – around a third of Schultz’s tally.

At the halfway point of the season, Bailey Banfield had kicked 10 goals, had just played a pivotal role in a wonderful on the road win against Melbourne and looked like he was bringing a lot of the qualities that Schultz brings.

But two poor games later Banfield had fallen out of the best 22. In the back half of the season he played just four games for a single goal. At 25, is he everything he is ever going to be?

Fyfe begins a two-year contract next season, believed to be worth $400,000 a year. He is 32. He has played just 16 games in the past two seasons. Assuming the Dockers can get him fit it is not yet clear where he would best be used.

In 2021 he was trying to be a midfielder who pushed forward more often but what was otherwise a very respectable season for the then 29 year old (24 disposals, 13 contested possessions, three inside fifties, 5.6 clearances and four tackles per game) was ruined by poor conversion.

There are serious doubts over Fyfe’s ability to be a forward. Picture: Getty Images

Fyfe kicked 6.21 including a horror stretch in rounds four, five and six where he took a dozen shots on goal for 0.10.

It cast serious doubt on his ability to be a forward and the doubts have only increased in the past two seasons when a back problem, hamstring issues, then plantar fasciitis and a stress fracture in the foot have repeatedly interrupted his seasons.

The young Dockers midfield, which still had the size and experience of David Mundy and Blake Acres in 2022, had reason to believe it had moved past needing Fyfe. But they found themselves being out-sized and out-muscled without Mundy and Acres in 2023.

Suddenly, Fyfe was a good midfield fit. He just couldn’t get fit. And like his great rival at West Coast Elliot Yeo, there are serious doubts now over whether he can get fit enough for anything other than cameo midfield bursts.

Hayden Young’s successful shift midfield late in the season and Schultz’s unexpected departure add more fuel to the debate.

And those things come on top of the fact that Matt Johnson and Neil Erasmus, both regarded as inside midfielders in the long term, will be playing their third seasons in 2024 and will be looking for more time in the middle.

The Dockers hierarchy will be looking for where Fyfe fits in among all of that. The forward line experiment, declared over midway through 2023, may have another chapter to run yet.

Originally published as AFL 2024: Fremantle Dockers star Nat Fyfe’s ideal position up for discussion after Lachie Schultz exit