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Two years and 11 days in the past, Fremantle took at the Western Bulldogs in Perth, had been anticipated to win … and had been crunched via 49 issues with the margin flattering them in a efficiency that proved as soon as and for all that the attritional taste of footy that took them to a semi last in 2022 was once now not going to paintings.
“Boring, brainless and utterly broken – it’s time for Fremantle to find Plan B,” ran the headline of my Footy Fix that night time.
I point out this as a result of, 47 video games later, having reinvented themselves as a fast-moving, handball-happy outfit able to devastating bursts of objectives at their very best, long gone inside of a final-month capitulation of a major crack at a flag, and headed into a brand new 12 months with a glittery new famous person recruit and as a bona fide premiership darkish horse, they headed to Marvel Stadium to stand St Kilda below the Friday night time lighting fixtures … and installed a efficiency so rank as to straight away wreck two years’ price of efforts to mend what took place towards the Bulldogs again in 2023.
This was once Fremantle at their absolute worst. Pulverised at stoppages, with Caleb Serong close down utterly via a ferocious Saints midfield and no person ready to pick out up the slack. Slower than treacle with ball in hand, giving in totally to the Saints’ suffocating gadget and missing the dare, need or sheer will to even check out breaking via. And impotent in assault, and not using a plans past attempting to take a seat the footy on a wounded Josh Treacy’s head, hope for the most productive, and be let down each time.
From the utter eyesore that was once the primary part, during which Freo controlled only one target, seven issues in overall and truthfully had been fortunate to attain that a lot, the ground then spectacularly fell out of a defence that was once no less than keeping up the rattling wall as much as part time.
This wasn’t the run-of-a-mill horror display you’d be expecting of a correctly dangerous crew – there have been few outrageously dangerous talent mistakes, nor was once the gadget an glaring, egregious mess like West Coast or North Melbourne have continued this 12 months.
But that simply makes the butchering that took place all of the extra embarrassing: the Saints’ force was once out of the ordinary, their overlap run and raise super within the 3rd quarter particularly, and their contested marking inside of 50 as soon as the sport spread out a spotlight, however actually their fighters didn’t hearth a unmarried shot for them to dodge. One-way visitors doesn’t do it justice.
A 10-goal loss towards a middle-of-the-road opposition in a fit, away recreation or no, that Freo began as favourites in is demoralising sufficient by itself. Add the context round Justin Longmuir, the strengths of the crew he leads and the adventure it has taken the Dockers to get right here – anyplace ‘here’ is, as a result of at this level it’s not possible to inform – and Friday night time’s insipid show with the entire footy international staring at (or no less than the ones folks who may abdomen it) veers dangerously with reference to coach-killer territory.
This is Longmuir’s 6th 12 months on the helm. After his 3rd, he was once almost about the most productive trainer within the trade, easily finishing Freo’s upward push into premiership rivalry and cultivating a crew with immense skill in each aspect – from a star-studded midfield, to a perilous one-two ruck mixture, to 2022’s maximum miserly defence with all bases lined to smother fighters to demise.
It is inexcusable for a crew at this level in their construction – and that’s even striking apart the skill at the listing, of which Shai Bolton’s arrival was once supposed to be some of the last items of the puzzle – to nonetheless be able to appearing this poorly.
A trainer in his 6th 12 months whose fees have unexpectedly develop into home-track bullies, irrepressible at domestic and but automatically pathetic at the avenue, with one finals berth to his title in his tenure to this point, merits the serious scrutiny that may unquestionably come his means this week.
With a rolling contract over his head, the season, and Longmuir’s training profession, is a ways from unsalvageable – however one thing would wish to transform for this crew to such a lot as develop into the sum of its portions.
And it’s truthfully arduous to figure out how precisely their multitude of issues will also be fastened.
The high-octane handballing throughout the hall, the electrical sprint from stoppages of a Brayshaw, the everlasting outdoor operating of pace demons Michael Frederick, Bolton and co., vanished within the smog of a Saints crew intent on an ambush.
As was once the case in 2023, the mark numbers of Freo defenders tells a tale each the place this recreation was once being performed, and what the Dockers’ reaction to dropping the midfield fight was once: chip across the backline, stay up for one thing to offer additional afield, and when not anything was once drawing close, bomb lengthy to a competition, lose a higher stoppage, and be compelled to protect all over the place once more.
The lack of Hayden Young robbed the Dockers in their maximum dynamic, lethal-kicking on-baller, however with only one target to their title when his hamstring once more gave in it wasn’t as though that by myself was once what they had been lacking, both.
When it in truth recreation in combination, there have been indicators of Freo’s standard modus operandi – this slick passage down the wing, pretty Bolton handball to an overlapping Brayshaw, and perilous kick to an remoted, under-the-pump pair of Saints defenders is strictly what we’ve come to be expecting from the Dockers over the past two years.
But up till the overall ten mins, when the outcome was once neatly and really finished, this was once reasonably actually the one time the Dockers put anything else with reference to this on show.
The main misfire, regardless that, was once clearly the clearance rely – and a 50-22 walloping is as ghastly a differential as you’ll see all 12 months.
But this domination wasn’t only a one-off, however moderately a slowly creeping weak spot achieving all-time low.
Freo’s power final 12 months, obviously, was once from stoppages: for a lot of 2024, it was once up to now and away probably the most fatal clearance crew within the recreation as to defeat the aim of comparability.
How does a crew move from being the second-best ever clearance-winning crew on file, to being smashed via 28 via a St Kilda midfield that ranked as one of the vital worst on-ball teams within the AFL this 12 months?
In 2024, the Dockers averaged seven extra clearances in step with recreation than their fighters, the use of that energy on the coalface to place in combination handball chains, specifically from defensive 50 – best Sydney scored extra from their defensive part final 12 months in comparison to their fighters – and run opponents off their ft.
It’s now not running, this 12 months – Freo ranked 11th for stoppage wins heading into Friday night time, and are worse than their fighters at scoring from them. And simply because it was once in 2023, Longmuir apparently has no plan for when groups close them down on the coalface – and the Saints brutally uncovered their reliance on Serong to force that.
Caleb Serong and Alex Pearce react to Fremantle’s loss. (Photo via Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)
Since being thrashed via Geelong in Round 1, Freo have received all 3 video games their famous person midfielder has received double-digit clearances, and misplaced 3 of 4 (beating best Richmond) when he hasn’t.
It implies that, after dropping the clearance rely in simply 5 video games final 12 months, they have got misplaced it 4 instances within the first 8 video games. That’s an intensive curtailing of what, simply 12 months in the past, was once their greatest power.
Serong in 2024 received 46 extra clearances than the next-best Docker, Brayshaw; it’s already as much as 30 from 8 video games this 12 months. Only one different crew has an opening upper than 19 between their very best and second-best clearance winners; St Kilda themselves, with Jack Macrae someway 41 up on Jack Steele.
On Friday night time, Serong may have completed with 8 clearances, however as much as part time, when this recreation was once arrange, he had only one – and of his seven in the second one part, few had been greater than determined hacks ahead below heavy St Kilda force.
The message is apparent: prevent Serong successful clearances, as a number of groups together with the Saints have successfully controlled this 12 months, and put Freo firmly at the again foot, and with out an efficient choice to get issues again on their phrases.
In their very best two wins this 12 months, towards the Bulldogs and Adelaide, the defining feature isn’t that each had been performed in Perth in any case: it’s stoppage energy.
Against the Crows, the Dockers received the clearance rely 38-30, and with Andrew Brayshaw freed as much as many times explode from stoppages, managed territory all night time and dictated phrases from the get-go.
The Bulldogs may have received the clearance rely, however that was once a fit received with six objectives in 15 mins in the second one quarter, during which Freo, you guessed it, went 7-1 for clearances and kicked 3 of the ones objectives from stoppages. Aside from that burst, this was once any other fit during which they had been predominantly second-best.
The level of all that is that, all over again, Longmuir reveals himself having to reinvent a facet that has had its one-wood comprehensively labored out, exploited, and become a weak spot.
It’s why the Saints outcome must best be sudden within the quantity of the towelling up, and now not that the Dockers had been out-coached via a shrewd operator in Ross Lyon, and may to find no resolution.
Perhaps any other whole retooling, as took place two years in the past, is at the playing cards; but when that’s required, and any other 12 months of lacking finals is the outcome, then it’s extremely not likely Longmuir goes to be the person to adopt it.
