Fremantle superstar Nat Fyfe will play his first AFL final since 2015 and his coach couldn’t be happier for him.

Fyfe was the hard luck story when the Dockers made the finals in 2022 after a hamstring injury ruled him out of the September action. He watched from the sidelines as Fremantle produced a brilliant win over the Western Bulldogs that year and was still unavailable when they travelled to the MCG to play Collingwood.

The Dockers have carefully managed the dual Brownlow medallist through injury all year and now he is healthy when it matters. Fyfe has already announced that he will retire at the end of the season and coach Justin Longmuir said it was fitting that he would play finals.

“It’s great. I didn’t want to get too heavy on the celebrations last week, win or lose against Brisbane because I had a strong belief we’d be back at home for another game. That’s come to fruition. He’s got at least one more. Let’s see if we can make it four more.,” he said.

Fyfe played as the sub during Sunday’s win over the Western Bulldogs, came on during the final quarter but still had extended periods on the bench.

The former captain has now been the sub in six of his seven games this year. He appears almost certain to continue to play in that position during the finals, but Longmuir said he could definitely play a full game if required.

He explained the plan around Fyfe changed during the match and he was forced to return to the bench out of necessity as the Bulldogs started to surge.

“It was probably more match ups late in the game,” he said.

“We needed to try to stop Bont. He was getting off the chain a little bit in that last quarter. When you go to a run-with inside, it chops out some of the midfield time so we left him on the bench

“ We were trying to work out how to get him into the game with Wags going off. We had to wait for that to get assessed. We would have liked to have got him on a little bit earlier.

“He’s so selfless. He keeps telling me there’s no rush when the agme is going the way we want it to be going. He’s just happy to be playing his part and his role for the team.”