Roar Guru
Fremantle Dockers sit on the brink of a top eight position and will traverse the continent to face Gold Coast Suns with the aim of securing a percentage boosting win. Join us at 4.40pm AEST for live scores and commentary from Metricon Stadium.
The Dockers enter this game as outright favourites and have the greater incentive for a win. They currently sit in ninth position on percentage, and the coaching staff would already be chalking up the four points.
The Suns remain winless this season, and in fact are yet to register their first ever win on their home ground.
An over-confident Freo, one that regularly shows flakiness on the road, is just the sort of fixture that the Suns should seek to jump into with some confidence.
The bad news for Gold Coast is that their inspirational skipper Gary Ablett remains on the sidelines and is likely to stay there for another four weeks. That’s a big hole in midfield to fill.
Freo has some genuine talent in middle with David Mundy, Michael Barlow and Stephen Hill but they too have an important omission with Aaron Sandilands, one of the competition’s leading ruckmen.
Off the field, perhaps through frustration at missing some rare playing time, Ablett made his presence felt with a Twitter outburst directed at the tagging tactics of Ryan Crowley.
This week, there won’t be a big need for pushing the envelope, the Dockers midfield is odds on to come out on top.
The Suns may wish to give a run-with role to Karmichael Hunt, who has shown a real taste for the contested ball situations the last few weeks in a team generally brimming with outside runners.
A key match-up will be Nathan Bock on Freo’s key forward, Matthew Pavlich. The Suns will be relying on Bock to keep Pavlich in check because if he breaks the shackles, it will hurt on the scoreboard.
I’m looking forward to seeing Tendai Mzungu matching up on Harley Bennell, two quick, clever flankers, and Adam McPhee on Campbell Brown promises some fireworks.
One to watch out for on the Suns side is young Kyal Horsley, who debuted last week with a match high eight tackles, so there’s a bit of get up and go about the kid.
All the statistics are favouring Freo today and the Suns only hope is to catch them out as they did North last week for one half.
Today it should be a good win to the Dockers by 30 points.
Will Ross Lyon’s Dockers put the clamps on the Suns? Find out from 4.40pm AEST as we cover action with live scores and a blog and if you’re watching, give us your thoughts in the space below.