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It’s Fremantle’s time to shine in 2025.
A popular dark horse for many throughout the off-season, yet not a team that has graduated to genuine contention in popular AFL opinion, there’s nothing particularly fearsome standing in the way of the Dockers heading into this year.
With just four rounds left in 2024, the Dockers were in the top four. They lost each game in the final month despite being in advantageous positions in the second half of each game, falling to tenth by season’s end and missing out by half a game.
That’s a strong factor in the hesitancy to elevate this team into the premiership hunt in the eyes of some, yet if we’re to celebrate how close the competition is and the evenness across up to 15 clubs, how can we then have the double standard of holding heartbreaking results against a club that may have caused some damage in September anyway.
Fremantle’s in a strong spot heading into 2025. They recruited Shai Bolton as the headline act and they didn’t lose a member from their best team.
They’ve got their key players signed up for at least three years and most extending for at least five, and they’ve created some stability across the board.
What’s the criteria, then, for a premiership contender, a team that can truly lift that cup at the end of September?
Is it a strong defence that wins premierships?
Fremantle conceded the fourth-fewest points in 2024, but that’s really surface-level, an almost superficial way of analysing this.
A strong defence is more than scoreboard related, it’s the process in how we get there.
Statistics are wonderful, but only when used to as secondary device to the eye test. The Dockers clearly worked hard in both directions and the positioning when defending transitions was designed to be restrictive in allowing good looks at goal for the opposition.
They didn’t allow teams to use handball chains all that effectively to be able to slice and dice on the counter – Wheeloratings indicates they conceded three fewer handball receives than the league average.
Caleb Serong and Andrew Brayshaw of the Dockers celebrate. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Only two teams allowed fewer metres gained on average, Sydney and Hawthorn, and only those clubs were as good as the Dockers in limiting scores out of the defensive half.
Fremantle conceded the second-fewest shots per inside 50, because they forced the opposition to slow their pace down.
The team had strong defensive structures and positioning, then add two of the AFL’s best pressure players in Andrew Brayshaw and Sam Switkowski covering the midfield and half-forward areas and it was stifling.
This is already one of the best defensive groups, there’s so much more growth to come from the ultra impressive Heath Chapman and Josh Draper, while continuity from Brennan Cox will help support Alex Pearce and Luke Ryan. An All-Australian year looms for Jordan Clark.
Naturally, the next question for a contender would be, can you subsequently play good offensive footy and put a good score on the board? After all, this isn’t 2005 or 2006.
That’s been a long-standing issue and negative-slanted perception on the Dockers. Again, it’s surface-level, but some will refer to the fact they ranked tenth for total points last season, which was 14th in 2023 and 12th in 2022, when they just missed top four.
In the second half of last season though, they averaged 92.5 points per game, which put them alongside the likes of Geelong, Sydney. Across 2024 as a whole, the Dockers were fifth for shots per inside 50 and were one of the best teams at marking the ball inside 50.
This is a team that would control possession but when it was time to move the ball, they flicked the switch and no team moved it quicker or more incisively. This was a handball-happy team, using angles and gaining meterage like no other.
This created space for the likes of Treacy and Jye Amiss to really flourish and receive great marking opportunities, often uncontested.
Hayden Young’s transition to the midfield was the big enabler in this – he rated elite for score involvements and goal assists as well as inside 50s, but it was his handballing that impressed the most.
Perhaps the biggest issue here was simply that the Dockers didn’t get the ball inside 50 enough, which they ended up fixing in the second half of the season anyway and will continue.
The quality of Treacy shouldn’t be underplayed, he could win the Coleman and establish himself as a top-five forward this year, Amiss is a quiet achiever and there’s a rotating of forward/midfielders that are good for nearly a goal a game.
Shai Bolton averaged 1.5 goals a game with absolutely no service last year, by the way.
Do the Dockers have enough star power to be successful though?
This is a powerhouse midfield led by Caleb Serong, who is easily a top-10 player in the AFL, Andrew Brayshaw who’s as consistent as he is underrated for his running patterns and defensive game, and Young, who’s one of the most underrated centremen in the game.
The aforementioned Treacy is on a trajectory that will see him become one of the league’s best and Luke Jackson’s ability to impact as a ruckman, have gravity as a forward and as a sporadic midfielder, be explosive, is unmatched.
Luke Jackson. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)
Bolton too, he’s a star.
Squad depth is vital to winning a flag and the Dockers now bat deep.
Nat Fyfe and Michael Walters are legendary figures, but they simply shouldn’t play every game, nor do they need to. Impactful in moments without doubt, these guys are peripheral figures for the group now.
Defensively, there’s a chance Draper isn’t even in the team at full-strength to start with. Corey Wagner’s around the mark and is a feel-good story for a mature-age player getting another chance at senior level, whose pace really appeals to the coaching group.
Nathan O’Driscoll’s re-emergence as an outside-inside midfielder just adds to the depth, with Matt Johnson deserving of games but perhaps struggling for opportunity. Neil Erasmus has plenty of talent, but Murphy Reid was the most skilled player taken in last year’s draft and has leapfrogged some more tenured teammates, as did Cooper Simpson the year before.
Don’t underestimate Jeremy Sharp’s season and development as a key figure who stretches the ground and hits the scoreboard too.
So, there’s a strong tick for the defence, a tick for the offence that clicked into gear in 2024, the star power is as good as the depth at the Dockers with quality options all around the ground and coverage for injured players like Sean Darcy and even a home-ground advantage to boot.
Ticking all those boxes seems like contention truly is on the cards. Now, it’s up to the coach.
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Justin Longmuir’s in a weird spot. Him and the club came to terms to transition to an “ongoing employment agreement”. His future with the Fremantle is set. Well, that’s until it isn’t.
The Dockers can terminate when they see fit, but there’s no end date. Accountability and trust are at play here, there’s flexibility for the club, there’s no immediate pressure for the coach and right now, there’s aren’t any pressing combustible elements that indicate a change.
Justin Longmuir. (Photo by Jono Searle/AFL Photos/via Getty Images )
He has been guilty of being tactically rigid at times and unimaginative, but those fears have slowly dissipated as the team clearly developed at both ends of the ground throughout last season.
If the youth play the right way, he backs them in. Nearly half the Dockers’ list is 23 and under. Half of them have played at least a season’s worth of footy. At least seven of them are in the best squad picked on game day.
It’s been a bit of a slow grind under Longmuir, a single finals appearance, just about breaking even overall under his leadership and without doubt, he has come under fire on a few different occasions.
2025 is a different vibe to it all though. The list is in a good spot and a lot of players with long-term futures at the club have already been developed into quality footballers. They might have five top-25 players on the list by the end of the season, which would be remarkable.
They’ve developed a defensive identity and have an offensive point of difference that really works and can put the opposition to the sword. Now, it’s up to the coach and players alike to bring it all together.
It’s hard to fathom this group missing out on the top four in 2025 and from there, greener (whiter, more red or purple, pick your poison) pastures await.
This is the year for the Dockers and they’re more than well-prepared to taste success.