We started running with ‘Flagmantle’ in 2022 when the Dockers made the jump into the top eight for the first time since 2015.

To be honest, it was a bit of a pisstake then. They weren’t ready to win a flag. It was too early in their journey to genuinely challenge.

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But 2026 ‘Flagmantle’? This is no pisstake.

The list is clearly ready. There’s a core group of players from that 2022 campaign – Andrew Brayshaw, Caleb Serong, Luke Ryan, Jordan Clark, Brennan Cox, Hayden Young, Michael Frederick, Sean Darcy and Alex Pearce – that have now played a lot of footy together. They’ve then drafted and traded in key players like Luke Jackson, Josh Treacy, Shai Bolton, Murphy Reid, Patrick Voss, Isiah Dudley and Judd McVee to complement that core.

Hayden Young is one of Fremantle’s many A-graders – when healthy. (Photo by Travis Hayto/AFL Photos via Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

But an understated aspect of Fremantle’s success is the culture these players have set within the football club.

A rusted-on Fremantle fan, who said he’d seen every training session for the last six years, rang up radio last week. He said the way the Dockers trained before the game against North Melbourne was the best training session he’d ever seen. Yes, it was a punter, but in that situation I believe a punter like that actually knows what’s going on – and then side has gone out and beaten North by 124 points.

Two players, first and foremost, have set the training standards for many years: Serong and Brayshaw. The two long-time star midfielders have gone head-to-head on the track and consistently pushed each other to get better in how they prepare and how they train.

The flow-on effect has seen others get on board. Including Josh Treacy.

FREO’S NEXT CAPTAIN

And there’s been no greater influence on the club’s culture this year than Treacy, who is Fremantle’s next captain. While Treacy hasn’t been doing it as long as Brayshaw and Serong have, it feels like he’s just as significant a leader at the Dockers now than Serong and Brayshaw, even thogh the latter two are vice-captains.

We had Treacy on the BackChat podcast before the season started. His belief in the group was unbelievably impressive.

Treacy doesn’t drink alcohol (during the season) – and several other players don’t drink off the back of what he does. He trains the hardest and he pushes himself to limit.

He says: ‘This is what we’re doing and this is what it’s going to result in’ – and there’s no deviation in his belief Freo will be a good football team.

Josh Treacy should be Fremantle’s next captain. (Photo by Daniel Carson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

Treacy’s attitude and presence during that interview blew me away. That doesn’t just happen overnight. It’s happened over probably six years of this group being together.

Brayshaw and Serong had set the running and touch standards for so long. Everything that’d ever happened at Fremantle over the last five years at training, it was those two at the forefront.

But now Treacy is the standard-setter.

The Dockers have their ‘mark group’ at training where they do something like 100 marks a session. They just have people kick balls at the players at 100 miles an hour – and there’s now this big pack of players that line up to compete against Josh.

What Treacy doing on-field is now just as – if not more – inspiring than Brayshaw and Serong. In fact, I’m sure those two star mids, who’ve had to carry the load at Freo for five years, would be stoked they no longer ‘have’ to be the best two players on the ground for Freo to win.

JL PROVES DOUBTERS WRONG

They’re also so well-coached.

Justin Longmuir for a long time has been maligned as a coach, both in the Victorian media and here in Western Australia. Right now, they are the best-coached team in the AFL.

Justin Longmuir: ‘Not our best self yet’ | 11:11

They can win in different ways and scenarios. The clarity each player has in role and the absolute single-minded focus means when the team gets in close games now, when they’ve got a big moment on the field in the spur of the moment, they all know what they’re doing and what’s going to happen. Because they’re on the same page.

When they lose someone like Serong to injury, or they don’t have Young or Pearce or Darcy or Matt Johnson, they just get a player to come in and play the same role and keep going the way they.

I’d have him as the best coach in the AFL right now. I don’t think you do that over six months.

Justin Longmuir is making the right calls. (Photo by Daniel Carson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

WHY THIS IS SUSTAINABLE

Despite what the ladder says, the Dockers haven’t been ‘dominant’ this year.

The 124-point win over the Kangaroos on the weekend might’ve been their first four-quarter performance they’ve put together this year. That tells me they’ve got room for growth.

Previously, they’ve just been finding ways to win a lot of their games – like against Adelaide, Collingwood and Hawthorn. They’ve held on to leads after fast starts, come from behind after a slow patch in the middle of the game. They’ve been ‘everything’, but I don’t think they’ve been at their best.

I know talk around ‘when’ the Dockers will lose a game will start soon, if it hasn’t already. They might drop a match – and you don’t have to lose one – but what you do want to do as a footy club is still find ways to win when things aren’t 100 per cent smooth. Because that’s what the best clubs do.

I think it is sustainable because I don’t think they’ve really played their best footy yet.

‘Dreadful’ – King blasts Kangaroos | 02:03

HANDLING EXPECTATIONS

The Dockers’ run home is elite. Five of their next seven games are at Optus Stadium. Overall, they only have to leave WA four times for the rest of the home and away season.

I don’t see them dropping out of the top two on the ladder.

They do play the likes of Sydney, Geelong and Gold Coast during over the next month – and they’ll probably drop one of those matches, because they’re good sides too.

But I don’t think it particularly matters whether they win out for the rest of the year or if they lose a couple of games. The way they’re playing is incredibly consistent and they can beat you in a lot of different ways.

They’re not just a corridor-blitz, handball run-and-gun team all the time. But they can be.

They’re not just a high-possession, high-retention, kick-mark team. But they can be.

They’re not just a physical, long-down-the-line, contest-after-contest team. But they can be.

They’ve got so many different levers to pull. They’re the most consistent, best-coached and most-balanced side in the AFL.

So 2026 is no pisstake.

Will Schofield is a West Coast premiership defender who played 194 games for the Eagles. He is also a Fox Footy analyst and host of the BackChat Podcast.