Jordan Clark on how Fremantle Dockers have raced to fastest pair of starts to games since 2005

Fremantle players are putting their rapid-quick starts down to playing the game “our way”, according to gun defender Jordan Clark.

The Dockers booted 8.4 (52) and led by 33 points after their blistering first term against Geelong last week, but fell away and coughed up their advantage.

Then they put 7.7 (49) on Melbourne in Saturday night’s home victory and carried a 42-point advantage into the first break.

The 15.11 they have piled on in those two terms is the second-highest pair of consecutive first quarters in club history and the biggest in more than two decades.

Fremantle under Chris Connolly kicked 7.4 against the Demons in round six of the 2005 season and then 9.2 in a 112-point win over Collingwood the following week.

Clark said the start of matches are always played at a frenetic pace early in the season, but was pleased with how the Dockers have been able to jump into games and convert early chances.

“Early in the year the game’s always going to be hot,” he told The West Australian.

“I thought we were really good, converted well off the back of our contest.

“And we truly believe we are a very good footy team when we play the game our way and an example of that at full tilt is the first quarter this week and last week.”

Unlike their round one defeat to the Cats, the Dockers were able to control the game beyond the first term in their 48-point win.

“They wrestled momentum back a bit. And that’s the game in this day and age. You’re not going to have the whole 120 minutes your way. And we understand that,” Clark said.

“When they got on top, we just had to find a different way to sort of wrestle it back. I felt like we did, and that shows a little sign of our maturity as a group and taking learnings from last week as well.

“At half-time it was frustrating because we didn’t score as much as we would like, but we had 20 scoring shots and the game was largely looking at on our terms. So JL (coach Justin Longmuir’s) message was don’t get frustrated. Just keep playing our way and it’ll come.”

Coach Justin Longmuir said on Saturday night he had changed the way he is asking players to approach the start of matches.

“We’ve talked about our first quarters a little bit more,” he explained.

“Pre game, we’ve shown a bit of vision around how we start games and how we get into games. Sometimes players maybe lean into valuing possessions and getting into game through possessions, but we’ve tried to explain that there’s so many ways that players can get into the game.”