Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

I think "afresh" is proper here. "Afresh" is an adverb to describe the verb "start", while "fresh" is an adjective.   It could be reworded to say, "... chance to have a fresh start."   Then start has changed to a noun and the adjective,"fresh", would describe it.

Robert gets to the point quick: fresh as an adverb works just fine. I may talk fresh and fight dirty, but Robert works hard and shoots straight. And he types fast.

There are several adverbs called "flat adverbs" for which the -ly must be or may be omitted.

Here's a short (incomplete) list of examples: “far,” “fast,” “hard,” “slow,” “quick,” “straight," “clean,” “close,” “deep,” and “fine”.