Nathan Broad wants to play for Freo? Duff's Thoughts (29.09.2026)

Mark Duffield (0:00)

Nathan Broad, Mark Moore Words, has got an interest in plan for Fremantle. Whether or not he gets there or not remains to be seen, but he is really keen to continue his career.

Now- Why couldn't he get there? Well, I'm not- What's the block? I'm not sure the interest is fully reciprocated. My understanding is- Wipe it out. Yeah, well, that's why I raise it. There's been conversations between the two. Now, it would make more sense at West Coast. The guy is 33 years of age, but he's maintained his fitness. He's spoken about this on Dylan Buckley's podcast, Footy and Friends, about the Peterburge program that he's maintained since he hung up the boots and wants to get back to Perth and wants to get back to WA. But he's absolutely got an appetite to continue. And in his mind, he wants to play AFL football next year. So I'll watch on him.

Mark Duffield (0:49)

It's interesting, and it certainly has relevance, given what's happened to Alex Pearce. And I would imagine that West, sorry, Fremantle will be having more conversations with him maybe West Coast will try and have conversations with him as well, given that they are short in defence. But probably a bit of a qualification on that is that Nathan Broad cut his teeth at Richmond as a sort of a second, third, sometimes even fourth tall defender. Well, Fremantle, if Alex Pearce is unavailable, will have just lost their first tall defender. Is Nathan Broad going to be able to do that? Or is he going to be able to provide support if they can stand Brennan Cox up in the prime role, then Nathan Broad maybe could be slide in as the second or third around in providing support. And if Hugh Davies and or Josh Draper can come on as well, then hopefully that shores them up a little bit more then. But yeah, certainly it would make him more likely to be of interest to Fremantle, but certainly not across the line yet, I would say.

SPEAKER_3 (1:54)

Yeah, so just regarding a few of the options that are in the wings waiting at Fremantle, aren't they, because they haven't seen them from there. But Hugh Davies is four to five centimeters bigger and probably a couple of kilos heavier than Broad as well. So to be that main man, the size will matter, won't it?

Mark Duffield (2:12)

Absolutely. It does at that end. I mean, it's one of the reasons why Oscar McDonald retains appeal because he's big, tall, and he can play on the big guys. And Nathan Broad probably is just a little bit smaller than that. So, yeah, that's going to be a fascinating watch in the weeks to come.

SPEAKER_3 (2:30)

But I mean, you could say that about anyone, you know, who wants to continue their AFL career with Fremantle. You know, there's nothing tangible to take away from that, isn't it? Because it's just a hope rather than anything that you can take away.

Mark Duffield (2:44)

He has great interest. Yeah. Why wouldn't he? They just played in the grand final.

Mark Duffield (2:48)

I put my hand up as well.

Mark Duffield (2:49)

And they may have had their best defender taken out of next year. We're waiting to hear on that. And obviously, hopefully, we'll have more news on that, hopefully, on the show tomorrow.

SPEAKER_3 (2:59)

Simon's saying, extremely proud of the club, exceptional year as a whole. I like that sort of outlook at things, because it is the best year on the club's record, is it not?

Mark Duffield (3:09)

Yeah, it's marginally better than 2013 and one match better than 2015 when they did win the minor Premiership at Bouda at the prelim.

SPEAKER_3 (3:17)

Yeah.

David Biberlake says, hey Duff, do you think the East Coast media influenced the use of Warfee Time? No, I think they got it in the heads, definitely.

Mark Duffield (3:27)

I think that the East Coast media just completely misunderstood what Warfee Time was. And therefore, when it got used in the Grand Final and we saw what happened after it, then they saw, oh, it's all because of Warfee Time, which, you know, it's a Grand Final, everyone's already flat out. And what Brisbane did, they went to a win the game scenario because they had to, you know, when you're three goals down, you can't save the game. Yeah, you have to win the game. You have to win it. And they went to that and they executed perfectly.

Fremantle got a couple of things wrong, but it was hard to get them right. I think someone texted in about, you know, some things that Fremantle couldn't have done, or should have done and didn't do. And one of those things obviously is always Josh Tracy behind the ball, but Josh Tracy goes behind the ball after the bounce because he becomes the plus one behind the ball. And the problem is that first goal they kicked, the one that brought the game back to life because they got it so quickly, that happened 23 seconds. So even if Josh Tracy had run up to the wing and tried to run back to be the plus one, he wasn't getting there in time to stop that goal anyway. So that was the problem. They got total command in and around stoppage over a four minute period, and that generated the opportunities that enabled them to win the game.