{"id":801325,"date":"2026-07-15T06:46:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T06:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/801325\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T06:46:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T06:46:15","slug":"from-the-pocket-fremantle-have-the-power-and-poise-to-ride-the-hype-to-an-afl-premiership-fremantle-dockers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/801325\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Pocket: Fremantle have the power and poise to ride the hype to an AFL premiership | Fremantle Dockers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you book your flights, or cool your jets? Is it Wharfie Time<\/a>, or squeaky bum time? Was it one of the best home and away wins of recent years, or just another four points in the winter grind? It\u2019s hard to know what to do, or how to react, if you\u2019re a Fremantle person right now. Do you go the full West Australian newspaper, or the full Justin Longmuir? Are you still anchored down by the last 30 years? Will you only believe, as some Geelong people only truly believed in 2007, when you\u2019re 15 goals up halfway through the final term of a grand final?<\/p>\n

Analysis of recent AFL<\/a> history is skewed by the introduction of new clubs and new rounds. But the past quarter of a century provides a good snapshot of how clubs in a comparable position to Fremantle right now ultimately fared. Since 2000, only seven teams were in as strong a position as the Dockers at this point of the season. Of those, three ended up winning the premiership, and three lost the grand final. The runners-up included the 2009 Saints, who were undefeated at this point of the season, and the 2005 Eagles, who were three games clear of second.<\/p>\n

The only team to miss the grand final were the 2015 Dockers, who\u2019d lost just two games after round 18. Though the club was too slow to realise it, it was that group\u2019s last chance to win a flag. The hinge moment came in the final quarter of the preliminary final, when they had all the momentum against a crack Hawthorn side. Halfway through the final term, Tendai Mzungu switched play with a 20-metre kick across half back. His target was Tommy Sheridan, playing his 38th game. Hot on his hammer was Cyril Rioli, probably the last person in Australia you\u2019d want in your vicinity at a moment like that. Sheridan dropped the easiest of marks. Rioli mugged him, turned on a dime, slammed home a 50-metre goal and gave the crestfallen, butter-fingered kid a dig in the kidneys.<\/p>\n

Matthew Pavlich\u2019s Dockers stumbled in the 2015 preliminary final against the Hawks after a stellar season. Photograph: Julian Smith\/AAP<\/p>\n

Dockers coach Ross Lyon had his head in his hands. Game, season, era over. The Hawks cruised to their third premiership in a row. Over the next few years, Lyon wore his players down, and wore out his welcome in Perth. His sacking was as cold blooded as his appointment. He shrugged his shoulders, did his farewell press conference in a local park and enrolled in a behavioural economics course at Harvard.<\/p>\n

Fremantle\u2019s captain in that 2015 preliminary final was Matthew Pavlich, who is now running the Sydney Swans, following a stint in the media that included being an equestrian commentator at the Paris Olympics. He watched last week\u2019s top-of-the-ladder clash on what seemed like a business class recliner chair, perhaps pondering how many more goals he could have kicked with this current Dockers midfield feeding him. He would have liked what he saw from his Swans, however, with the visitors devouring space and Chad Warner goose-stepping out of stoppages. So inaccurate were the Dockers that the normally imperturbable Longmuir was smashing phones.<\/p>\n

But it took the Dockers 30 seconds against the Swans to remind the competition what they\u2019re capable of, and why they\u2019re premiership favourites. Everyone watching that game was waiting for Wharfie Time. Few know who the faceless person is whose fingers hover over the activation button. It could be the Fremantle CEO. It could be the marketing manager. Hell, it could be Clive Waterhouse. Whoever it is, they have great timing, and that rare and welcome quality among sizzle merchants \u2013 restraint.<\/p>\n

Justin Longmuir trusted the process before Fremantle piled on 100 points in a half against Sydney. Photograph: Daniel Carson\/AFL Photos\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Fremantle fusillade cancelled out the need for intervention anyway. It was yet another example of how this Dockers side differs from those of Lyon\u2019s era. They\u2019re by no means without flaws. They can be tardy out of the gates, and they\u2019re vulnerable on their last line of defence. But irrespective of how badly they\u2019re kicking and how well the opposition\u2019s playing, they know they can turn up the wick and kick a lot of goals in a short amount of time. There will come a point \u2013 in a home final, and maybe even in a grand final \u2013 where they\u2019ll be forced to gather themselves, to stem a tide, and to go on the attack, and they now have about half a dozen performances to draw from.<\/p>\n

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It helps, with all the longing for the breakthrough flag, and with a local newspaper that tends towards the hyperbolic, to have a senior coach as low key as Longmuir. He isn\u2019t polished, or gnomic, or spoiling for a fight like other coaches. He plays the straightest bat since Chris Tavar\u00e9. He was asked to describe a game where his team didn\u2019t kick a goal in the first half, and then piled on 100 points in the second. \u201cIt\u2019s about process, right?\u201d Longmuir said. \u201cIt\u2019s about maintaining faith in the process.\u201d Procedural isn\u2019t the first adjective that comes to mind when describing Fremantle\u2019s season. But the coach\u2019s response is the perfect counterbalance to the mayhem of a night at Optus Stadium, and the hype that\u2019s building around this remarkable team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do you book your flights, or cool your jets? Is it Wharfie Time, or squeaky bum time? Was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":801326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-801325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/801326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}