Fremantle’s Tobe Watson’s de-listing reminiscent of fellow defender Sam Collins’ departure from the club

Fremantle fans may or may not remember Sam Collins. A mature-aged recruit from VFL club Box Hill, Collins played 14 games for the Dockers in 2016 and 2017 as a roll-off, intercepting defender. He was never given the best forward, nor would he tear a team apart with piercing ball use going forward, but he was big enough to match it with they key forwards and athletic enough to go with the smalls too. Since being de-listed, he has carved out a more than respectable AFL career on the Gold Coast, has played more than 50 games, and has become one of the most reliable defenders in the competition. Remind you of anyone? How about Donnybrook’s Tobe Watson. A mature-aged recruit from Swan Districts, Watson also played 14 games at the club over two seasons, played on the smalls and the talls and read the play well enough to spoil and intercept. Their numbers are also remarkably similar — Watson had 94 kicks in his 14 games to Collins’ 96 and 63 marks to Collins’ 68 and also 25 rebound 50s while Collins had 29. Like Collins, he was by no means a star, but not everyone can be, and the very best sides have always had accountable role players fill the gaps around their A-graders. In Richmond’s recent premiership teams this was fellow Swan Districts product Nathan Broad, and in Hawthorn’s three-peat it was Margaret River’s Ben Stratton. Fremantle will come to rue Watson’s de-listing as they did with Collins. More AFL: Last week he told The West Australian the decision was made because of an over-supply of defenders. “They said there were a lot of guys in a similar position who were coming back from injury like Heath Chapman, Joel Hamling, Brennan Cox and guys like that. They thought they had too many guys in a similar position to me so I got squeezed out,” he said. Chapman and Hayden Young are both young, exciting and reliable rebound defenders, while Hamling, Alex Pearce and to a lesser extent Cox, play a very different role to Watson. But for Young and Chapman to be at their best, they need workhorses sitting in behind them minding other forwards. Sure there’s an over-supply of defenders, but are there enough of the right type of defenders. Now Watson and Reece Conca have been shipped off, who is there left to do the hard stuff?