Two-time AFL premiership player David King has slammed Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir for deliberately playing a “vanilla” game style against the Indigenous All Stars on Saturday night.

The Dockers went down to the All Stars by 43 points in a comprehensive defeat, but speaking to reporters after the game, Longmuir said they were wary of giving away any secrets to rival clubs scouting the match.

“We played it pretty vanilla,” Longmuir said on Saturday night.

“It’s interesting, because all the other teams will get the vision and be able to watch it behind the goals.

“So we tried to keep it pretty vanilla, and we’ll work on bits and pieces next week, and we’ve got match sim and that vision is not released.”

Incredulous at the under-pressure coach’s mindset for the game, King said the Dockers missed a trick.

“What a waste of time. What a waste of time,” he told SEN on Monday morning.

“Why would you play a vanilla brand of footy when you’ve got two hours of opportunity to marshal the troops, to gather, to hit the season at full speed?

“This nonsense about opposition getting behind-the-goal vision — what do you reckon, you’re going to sneak up on Geelong? You’re going to sneak up on an AFL team that’s programmed to within an inch of its life?

“I couldn’t believe that.”

King conceded that pre-season practice matches pale in significance compared to the home and away season, but remained steadfast that Longmuir should have treated Saturday night more seriously.

“These practice matches are not life and death, they’re not. But wouldn’t you be experimenting with players in different positions? Wouldn’t you still be rigid in how you want to play?” King said.

“How you want to play is fundamentally all that matters, because at the end of the season, talent for talent, it’s pretty even, if you’re talking last four standing, last six standing.

“I just reckon you’ve got to hit the ground running; the first six weeks of the season are everything.”

Channel 7’s Kane Cornes agrees that Longmuir’s comments were “bizarre”.

“They had 43 entries, they kicked nine goals, and they played exactly that — they played vanilla,” he said.

“Now, they were missing some personnel; no Young, no Fyfe, no Pearce, no Bolton, no Darcy, so you factor that in.

“But this is a side that needs to go; they need to practice going as much as you possibly can. We don’t need nine goals (from) 43 entries.

“You’ve got to implement the way you want to play, at least 80 per cent of the style that you want to play.

“Because, do you think Justin’s going to sit there and come up with something that no one’s seen before? You think there are coaches and scouts out there going, ‘Geez, did you see what (they did)? We’ve never seen that before! Never seen it!’

“You’ve got to get good at what you want to do, to the point where everyone knows what’s coming, but you’re just too good and they can’t stop it. That’s what the best teams do.”

Longmuir said they will go to work behind closed doors, where other clubs can’t prey on their IP.

“At this time of the year, we’re trying to just make sure we get the basics right, and we didn’t want to expose some of the things we’ve been working on,” he said.

“I know when we do our match sim 18 on 18, no-one gets the vision.

“We’ve been working on few things in that space. We didn’t give too many teams a look at it today.”