Dockers defeat Swans 12.11 (83) to 10.11 (71) in AFL preliminary final
Minor premiers to meet Hawthorn or Brisbane in grand final at the MCG
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The Fremantle Football Club have never had a night like this. They’ve never been forced this deep down the well to win a big game. They’ve never had so much thrown at them. They’ve never been in such a hostile environment. They’ve never, in a big game, flipped so quickly from a meek, nervy, fumbly team to an offensive powerhouse.
All year they have demonstrated that they can run out games well, and that they can slam on a lot of goals in a short amount of time. They were awful here in the first half. But they showed signs of life after the main break. Some hard-fought stoppage wins culminated in a superb Jye Amiss goal, before Luke Jackson marked a dump kick and converted from 50m. But Sydney cancelled the two goals out immediately. And when Charlie Curnow hauled in a cracking contested mark, his first for the evening, they had half a foot in the grand final. In keeping with the pattern of the game, it began with an intercept mark in defence. If not for Hayden Young’s goal after the siren from deep in the members’ pocket, Fremantle’s cause may have been lost.
When these two clubs met in the 2013 preliminary final, the Ross Lyon-coached Dockers brutalised the Swans. The roles were reversed for the first two and half quarters last night. Sydney’s pressure was manic. When Fremantle kicked the opening two goals, it seemed to spur the home side into action. They were unrelenting, bearing down on the Dockers like maniacs – smothering, harassing and forcing countless turnovers. Every one of their players bought into it – from the replacements for the suspended players, to the ruckman, to their tall forwards. The spooked Fremantle players were constantly rushed and forced into costly errors.
Another area where the Swans excelled was with their intercept defenders. They outmuscled and outsmarted the Fremantle forwards, who didn’t bring the same physicality and nous that they did against Geelong. For the first hour, they got a bitterly disappointing output from Treacy, Amiss, Cox and Voss. Tom McCartin in particular towelled up Josh Treacy. McCartin spent the summer manning Charlie Curnow and it held him in good stead.
And initially, the Swans were so much quicker than the Dockers. They ran, chased and moved the ball at warp-speed. The footy pinged around the SCG and the Fremantle players were ponderous and flat footed. Again, it was one thing that the lesser-known Swans players had in common – they were all fast and they ran their vastly more experienced opponents ragged.
But as time-on approached in the third quarter, there were little distress signals that all was not well. They were 28 points up, but some of them were starting to drag their feet. The Dockers went to the huddle on their toes and with a sniff. And for the next half an hour, the ball was almost permanently parked in their front half. Shai Bolton, who’d flickered in and out of the game up until that point, was sent forward and was magnificent when it mattered most, slicing and slithering and using the ball well. He has a knack of turning up the wick and turning games in final terms. Patrick Voss, barely sighted early, imposed himself on the contest, stiff-arming Dane Rampe and banana-kicking a goal to reduce the margin to single figures. From that point on, there was an inevitability to the Dockers win. The home side, so defensively resolute for the first three quarters, were now shovelling against an avalanche.
The Dockers got outstanding games from Young, Bolton and especially Alex Pearce, who saved many a goal when Sydney were rampaging. They were the dominant home and away team. They picked themselves back off the canvass after Hawthorn chinned them in Perth. They withstood everything Geelong threw at them. And they mowed down a willing, but truncated Sydney. As they celebrated making just their second grand final, the Fremantle rooms on Friday night were a mixture of raucity and relief. They have their share of peacocks, extroverts, and alphas. But most of them, including the coach, are decidedly more low-key, and the overwhelming mood was one of quiet satisfaction. They’d finished the game well, but they knew they they’ll have to take it to another level to beat either Brisbane or Hawthorn.
For Sydney it was remarkable that they even got to this point. If you’d said four weeks ago that this team would be playing off in a home preliminary final, you’d have been led away by men in white lab coats. They were in utter turmoil. Their culture was trashed. They’d divested themselves of some of the best players in the competition. By their own admission, they torpedoed their own prospects.
They deserve enormous credit for salvaging their season, for changing the way the play, and for giving the Dockers an almighty fright. Ultimately, Fremantle’s depth and a greater weight of talent proved too much. It had been an exhausting game. It had been an exhausting month. And in the end, the Swans were cooked.
