Fremantle coach Mark Harvey believes the club's controversial decision to rest seven players last weekend ultimately paid dividends as the Dockers secured a home final through a nailbiting six-point win over Carlton on Friday night.
Facing a trip to Launceston to play Hawthorn and a six-day break leading into this encounter, Harvey rested seven players, including skipper Matthew Pavlich, midfield general David Mundy and star youngsters Stephen Hill and Anthony Morabito.
Although many questioned the tactic, suggesting the 116-point belting would psychologically scar the side, Harvey had the last laugh as the Dockers held on against Carlton, the victory seeing them finish either fifth or sixth on the ladder depending on other results.
"I think if you have a look at our top five possession getters, most of those guys were rested last week," Harvey said, referring to players like Hill and Pavlich, who both finished with 25 possessions and two goals apiece.
"It's just to make sure that we had the team ready for this game."
"It could be seen as a fairytale ending to it, but from our point of view we always believed we were doing the right thing."
With 11 players in total coming into the side as Aaron Sandilands, Hayden Ballantyne, Chris Mayne and Paul Hasleby returned from injury to compliment the rested seven, Harvey still felt the players lacked some polish.
"I'd certainly say a few of the guys would benefit from that run," he said, when discussing several poor turnovers in a frantic final quarter that saw the Blues whittle a 29-point lead down to just six points with three minutes remaining.
"Particularly little things like touch and goal kicking. We had our moments when we weren't controlling the ball how we would have liked."
Harvey felt Hill certainly benefitted from the rest, the youngster producing an emphatic response after a series of quiet games, albeit after his tag, Andrew Carrazzo, was injured in the first quarter, not to return.
"I think every young player's going to have lulls, it's how they come back from it and how quickly they do it," Harvey said.
"The true test now for Stephen and particularly for the 10 first and second-year players that we had play tonight, if they're lucky enough to play next week, well we need to see how they handle a finals game."
"It's great for them (the youngsters) to experience that type of game leading into a home final," Harvey added, when asked if the game was played with a finals-like intensity.
"At the start of the year, no one would have given us any chance or opportunity to be in this position, to get 13 wins is a credit to the whole club but now it's about capitalising on that."
"WA hasn't had a home final for three years, so we'd like all WA and Perth to get behind us next week."