Broome AFL star Bailey Banfield and Fremantle Dockers prepare for winning 2023 season

As the country prepares for their favourite AFL teams to fight it out for a spot on that one day in September, the Advertiser touched base with one of Broome’s homegrown football stars, Bailey Banfield.

Despite being relegated as medical-sub for most of the 2022 season, Banfield made several impressive performances when given the opportunity to play.

Now in 2023 he hopes to strike out from the bench and secure himself as a key player on Fremantle’s side and with some minor changes to the team’s line-up he sees this season as a perfect opportunity to do so.

“They’ve had a few blokes leave, so hopefully I’ll get a decent crack at it this year and string some good games together and secure my spot, ideally not playing as medical-sub,” he said.

Banfield is also looking to improve his ferocity on the field, focusing on his skills in the contest to become a more “dangerous” operator.

“I’m looking to improve on my work in the contest, tackling and also driving the ball through the contest and being more dangerous and hard to tackle with my footwork,” he said.

With Fremantle’s strategy carrying them all the way to the pointy end of the finals last year, Banfield said the team’s game plan had remained much the same, with the side looking to capitalise on its strengths from last season.

“We’ve got some new personnel in so there has been some little tweaks to help bring their strengths to the fore, but mostly the strategy remains the same,” he said.

“It’s more about improving as a group, improving our understanding of how we want to play and being able to do it under pressure in bigger games in front of bigger crowds — that will be where the improvement comes from.”

With Fremantle managing to break their six-year finals dry spell in 2022, Banfield is joined by fellow team mate Lachie Schultz in believing the Dockers have the makings of a premiership team.

“We’ve got the team that’s capable of it,” Banfield said.

“We just need to put it together and sustain it over full season so we can give ourselves the best chance come finals time.

“If we set ourselves up to be in a good position later in the season we will have every chance to win it.”

The 2023 AFL season is set to start on March 16 with Fremantle set to take on the St Kilda Saints in round one.