- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
If Fremantle lose to Geelong this Saturday will the club’s premiership window close? It is a provocative question, but not a hysterical one.
The Dockers have failed to back up their stellar 2013 season, and with a 4-4 win-loss ledger their flag hopes could be snuffed out by the Cats in Perth.
The bigger picture is that 2014 shapes up as this squad’s last chance at lifting the cup. Their three most important players structurally, Matthew Pavlich, Luke McPharlin and Aaron Sandilands, are now well into their 30s.
Most key-position footballers weighing more than 100 kilograms barely last past 30, let alone to 33 or 34.
That star trio may well buck history and continue to be influential players next year. Or one, two or even all three of them could fall apart physically, leaving Fremantle without the weapons needed to secure a flag in 2015.
Considering that, the match against Geelong is of monumental significance to a club which has drastically underachieved over the course of its 20 seasons in the AFL.
If Fremantle lose they will probably have to win 12 of their last 13 games to finish top four. Over the last four seasons, not once has a team qualified for the double chance with fewer than 16 wins.
History also shows that a side has not nabbed the premiership from outside the top four since Adelaide 16 years ago.
The Dockers’ record against Geelong is poor, having won just 10 of their 31 encounters against the Cats since entering the AFL in 1995. But it has improved in recent times, with three wins from their last five games.
Of course, the Dockers registered perhaps the grandest victory in the club’s history against Geelong last September. On that occasion, Fremantle’s stifling defensive pressure choked the Cats’ typically robust attacking play.
Nine goals from Pavlich and Hayden Ballantyne were enough to earn the Dockers a 16-point finals upset. Unfortunately for the Dockers, not only has that famous pressure been largely absent this season but the lively small forward Ballantyne suffered a broken jaw on the weekend.
Against a potent, in-form outfit like Geelong, Fremantle will need to either rediscover that defensive mindset or drastically improve their output up front, minus a crucial goal scorer.
Fremantle coach Ross Lyon stated pre-season that they wanted to become a higher-scoring side. Not only have they been unsuccessful in achieving that goal – they are averaging 85 points per game compared to 92.5 last regular season – but in chasing it they appear to have lost their defensive mongrel.
It has been there for patches of games but we are yet to see a complete defensive performance from Fremantle this season. On the weekend they were terrifically staunch for three quarters before being vaporised by a hard-running and skilful Port Adelaide.
To be fair to Fremantle, many teams have and will meet a similar fate against the Power this year. But their inability to stem the bleeding was worthy of note.
From late in the third term, Port had an extraordinary run of 12 unanswered scoring shots. Their supreme fitness has frequently enabled them to run over opposition teams this season but Fremantle’s defensive structures fell apart.
Geelong had the weekend off thanks to a bye and will have watched the Freo versus Port game with interest. They surely will have been buoyed by what they saw.
By knocking off Fremantle they can keep pace with Port. The Cats have been written off as a spent force prior to the start of each of the past few seasons, yet somehow they keep reinvigorating their list.
If Fremantle lose this weekend they will have to do something similarly special to ensure they don’t fall out of premiership calculations this year and next.
Pavlich, McPharlin and Sandilands are on their last legs and the Dockers have nothing to replace those champions.
Is it now or never for Fremantle? Yes, it appears so.