This is turning out to be a winter of lamenting for me as I not only lamented the lack of activity from the Southside Flyers but now I am going to be lamenting my favourite team of all time, the Fremantle Dockers.
Entering Round 18, my beloved Dockers are a game and a half plus percentage outside the Top 8. While that suggests that mathematically we can still play finals, let's be brutally honest here. The loss to Carlton on Sunday coupled with the worst run home has basically finished off our year.
Our run home is as follows;
Collingwood (MCG) Sydney (Optus Stadium) Geelong (GMHBA) Brisbane (Optus Stadium)
West Coast (Optus Stadium)
Port Adelaide (Optus Stadium) Hawthorn (MCG)
So not only do we play the current Top 3 on the AFL Ladder but we also have a trip to Geelong. That is as brutal and as ugly a run home as you're likely to see and before people say "Well, you've got West Coast and Hawthorn still to come," let me be clear on this. West Coast would've beaten us earlier in the year if it weren't for their bench resembling a hospital ward and Hawthorn always tends to give us problems even when they're not great, notwithstanding we beat them by 69 points at home all the way back in Round 8.
Season to this point: Round 1 in hindsight was a warning sign for this year as when both St Kilda and Freo came out for their warmups, the Saints were all out ready to warm up while Freo came out in dribs and drabs. The Saints held Freo goalless for the last 45 minutes as they turned a 12-point deficit into a 15-point win. In the following match against North Melbourne, Freo only played 5 really good minutes when the game was almost gone only to lose by a point. The Eagles were next and the duck was broken with a 41-point win although I still maintain to this day that with 2-3 fewer injuries, the Eagles would've deservedly won. Round 4 was Adelaide and we were never at the races losing by 39 points and then Gather Round saw us 5 goals down before coming back to beat Gold Coast by 10 points.
Round 6 was the Grudge Match against Rory Lobb who made some very choice comments upon departure to the Bulldogs and Freo once again failed on the big stage losing by 49 points to the Bulldogs. The next round was the longest trip in football and while we tried to keep the margin below 5 goals, we ultimately got blown out by 48 points against Brisbane.
At this stage, we were 2-5 with our season on life support but then came the briefest glimmer of hope.
Round 8 saw us dismantle Hawthorn by 69 points before heading to Sydney and claiming an unexpected 17-point win over the struggling Sydney Swans. Round 10 saw us knock off reigning premiers Geelong by 29 points and then we unexpectedly beat Naarm (Melbourne Demons) by 7 points at the MCG.
With this improbably stretch we were 6-5 and hopefully ready to charge back into contention but then the dreaded bye came and with that, it knocked our whole momentum out the window.
Round 13 we came out very slow against Richmond and then spent the rest of the game trying to get back into it but ended up going down by 15 points. Round 14 saw us barely leave the team bus at any stage as we got humiliated by 70 points against the Giants. The following week saw us recover with what turned out to be an impressive 32-point win against Essendon but then we went downhill again. Despite hitting the front briefly in the last quarter against the Bulldogs, they steamrolled over the top to win by 29 points before the disgrace of Round 17 against Carlton where we kicked 2.8.20 to three-quarter-time. Despite a 4 goal last quarter, we still lost by 53 points which leads us to now.
We are currently 7-9 with a percentage of 91.7%. Teams who were behind us last season have steamrolled past us and we now languish in 14th spot. To make matters worse, due to the trade for Luke Jackson, we don't even have our own 1st round pick which means if we remain there, we will be gifting the Melbourne Demons a Top-5 Draft Pick. When we talk about generosity, this will rank right up there as one of our greatest acts of generosity of all time.
Where has it gone wrong? 1) Our First Quarters To be competitive in games, it is vital that you start off well. It's fair to say that Fremantle haven't grasped that concept at any stage this season and even though they keep talking about needing to improve and needing to change it, nothing actually changes. I don't know what goes on in the rooms pre-game but whatever the hell it is, something is clearly not working because we are basically playing handicapped.
In our 16 games to date, we have won only TWO first quarters. A record like that starting the game means three quarters of catching up which we wouldn't have to do if we actually turned up more often to start. It is so damning that right now, this is what our first quarters combined to look like
Opposition 57.43.385 Fremantle 36.28.244
Over 16 games, we are giving up an average of 6.25 scoring shots per first quarter (compared to our 4) and we are being outscored by an average of 8.8 points in the first quarter. While this doesn't look bad on paper, the reality is that in eight of our 16 first quarters, we have been outscored by 10 points or more. It's not good enough!
2) Our Defense Last year when we won 15.5 games and a final, we had the second stingiest defence in the AFL. Over the regular season (22 matches), we conceded 1486 points (avg: 67.5ppg). Our team defence was an absolute feature as we were not only able to strange teams and stop them from scoring but our ability to maintain possession which in itself is a form of defense made it very difficult. We were well organised, well drilled and set up behind the ball remarkably well.
This year, we have been the absolute opposite. When teams have gotten a run-on, we've not been able to stop it. Our defending from the front has struggled, the midfield has allowed itself to be overrun repeatedly and our defense has been under siege for the majority of the season. After 16 matches, we have conceded a remarkable 1376 points (avg: 86ppg) and have gone from the second-best defense to the 4th worst in less than 12 months. Those defenders have made some horrible mistakes but they've not been helped by the overall decline in our team defense.
3) Our Attack This annoyingly has always been our Achilles heel, even when we were doing well under Ross Lyon. The criticism has always been that we simply don't score enough and this is something I don't disagree with in the slightest. Last year we have the 12th-best attack in the league averaging 79.05 ppg. This year, we've dropped to be the 14th-best attack in the league averaging 78.88 ppg. While this again statistically represents the slightest of drops, it does not escape the reality that we've always had a forward line that's struggled. At times we've generated enough opportunity but either the ball comes out too easy or we just can't score. The one positive in this area has been Jye Amiss who is at this moment in time on track to kick 40 goals but we need a lot more from others.
Over 10 years ago when Ross Lyon joined the club, he was speaking at a lunch that someone I knew was attending. I got that person to ask a question of Lyon concerning his defensive football and my fear we simply wouldn't score enough. I'm paraphrasing but his response to that was as follows For a team to be considered a premiership fancy, they need to be scoring on average around 100 points a game while conceding around 80 points per game on average. That is what I have always aimed for as a coach.
Given football has changed a lot over the last decade, I don't know if that 100/80 rule still applies but what I do know is this...if that rule still applies, Freo are nowhere near it.
After winning 15.5 games and a final last season then trading for Luke Jackson, I honestly thought that Fremantle could maintain the progression that they had shown under Justin Longmuir. This season has been a hideous regression and the football that we have played for the majority of the season has just frankly been ugly. There's no flair, not enough dash or dare to take the game on, it's slow and above all it's painful. With a horrible run home, 1.5 games and percentage outside the top 8, once again I am left facing the reality that come September, there will be no finals and not much to look forward to.
Such is the traditional lament of a Freo fan, unfortunately.
Comments