After Fremantle’s 38-point victory over North Melbourne, one would have to think about their chances of winning this year’s premiership.
After so many years of underachieving, Fremantle have over the last two years turned from pretenders into genuine contenders and this is all thanks to one man – Ross Lyon.
And now he has the club well placed to launch an assault at a first premiership for the Purple Haze, and the origins of this can be traced all the way back to a controversial coaching move on September 15, 2011.
Following a disappointing season in which the Dockers lost their last seven matches, and had half of its squad out through injury or suspension, Mark Harvey was controversially sacked with one season remaining on his contract and replaced with then-St Kilda mentor Lyon in equally controversial circumstances.
Nobody saw Harvey’s sacking coming, not even the man himself.
“Going forward the good thing about not playing in the finals is that you get to prepare the players to have a full pre-season,” Mark Harvey was reported to have said, in reference to the Dockers’ pre-season plans, at a breakfast function on the morning he was sacked.
What he didn’t know was that the Dockers had been in secret negotiations with Ross Lyon, who took the Saints to three unsuccessful grand finals and was establishing himself as the most successful coach at the least unsuccessful club in the AFL, throughout the second half of the season as they set about planning for future team success.
On the same day as Harvey’s sacking from Fremantle, Ross Lyon informed the Saints that he wouldn’t be seeing out his contract which would have lasted until the end of 2012.
The Saints had endured a tough season on and off the field, being eliminated by the Sydney Swans in the first round of the 2011 finals series. Additionally, the “St Kilda schoolgirl” saga and the nude photo scandal plagued the club for most of the season.
The following day, Lyon was officially unveiled as Fremantle’s coach. The manner in how the Dockers handled the entire situation was brought into question, given the way Mark Harvey was treated and the way in which Lyon was appointed.
The timing of all this suggests that the decision to get rid of Harvey and replace him with Lyon was rushed. What we now know was that the Dockers knew that Lyon had exercised his get-out clause at the Saints and were first to pounce on him.
Almost two years on from this controversial move, it could be defined as the moment St Kilda’s premiership window all but shut and that of the Dockers’ started to open.
Captain Matthew Pavlich said at the time of Lyon’s appointment that “he was excited to get to play under a coach of Lyon’s calibre” – after all, his record at the Saints spoke for itself – in 121 games coached for the Saints, he won 76, drew four and lost 41, for a 64.5% winning percentage, clearly the best percentage of any other coach in the club’s history.
And so a new era begun for the Fremantle Dockers. The Lyon era started off with a four-point victory over the defending premiers, Geelong, and this set the precedence for a season of consistence in which they would finish seventh at the conclusion of the regular season.
Their reward for a good season in which they won eight of their last nine regular season matches was a showdown against the Cats at the MCG, where the Dockers had historically struggled in the past.
Despite being clear underdogs against the reigning premiers, the Dockers unleashed in the first half and (supposedly) ended the Cats’ era of dominance with a 16-point victory. This marked Fremantle’s first finals victory outside the boundaries of Patersons Stadium.
Though the Dockers would lose their next final to Adelaide, their season overall was considered a success, as Ross Lyon started to get the best out of the squad he inherited from Mark Harvey.
And so far this season the Dockers have impressed. As of the end of Round 13, the Dockers have won eight, drawn one and lost two, a record that has them sitting third on the ladder.
Their only two losses came through a narrow loss to Essendon at home in Round 3, which was followed by a 42-point thrashing by Hawthorn in Tasmania. The only other blot was the Round 8 draw against Sydney in which they saved the match by rallying in the final quarter.
The Dockers’ progress this year has been all the more impressive given they are still missing their two most important and influential men – Matthew Pavlich and Aaron Sandilands, as well as a host of others, through injuries.
Against North Melbourne the Dockers had to play physically given the wet weather conditions, but they adapted well and never really let the Roos into the match. In the end, they won by 38 points, and kept North Melbourne to a miserly 4.5 (29) – its second lowest score since 1980.
Next week, they will fancy their chances of claiming their first victory in Geelong since 2005 when they travel to Simonds Stadium to take on the three-time reigning odd-year premiers this Saturday night (this will be the feature match in my Round 14 preview, which I will write later this week).
And the stakes will be very high – the Dockers will enter this match with the chance to do what they have never done before – claim second place on the ladder.
The Cats are coming off a heartbreaking last-minute loss to the Brisbane Lions, which will open the door for the Dockers to overtake their rivals as the second half of the season starts to heat up.
If the Dockers can cause somewhat of an upset on Saturday night, it will officially signal their premiership intentions to the AFL and set them up for a good second half of the season.
After the trip to the Cattery, the Dockers have a relatively good run to the end of the season – they will face St Kilda twice, and also have struggling Adelaide and GWS at home.
They will also have a Derby rematch against the West Coast Eagles, and a trip east to face Melbourne, who are in a big hole at the moment, having just sacked coach Mark Neeld.
The double chance, which comes with finishing in the top four, is a realistic target for the Dockers if they can continue their impressive progress under Ross Lyon for the remainder of the season.
Fans, though, can continue to dream about a first premiership while the real chance is still alive.
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