Purple Daze: Figuring out Freo's confusing 2015 season

It’s unlikely that there has ever been a team that has spent 18 consecutive weeks on top of the AFL ladder and been accorded as little respect as the 2015 Dockers.

Fremantle is currently third in premiership betting and the fact that they’re even that high is probably more a product of their ladder position than anything to do with their form on the field.

Since Round 10, the Dockers have been nothing more than an average side. They might be a respectable 7-4 in that time but they’ve only outscored their opponents by a measly 20 points.

In those 11 games, the purple haze are 6-0 against teams outside the eight and 1-4 against those inside it. They’ve been outscored by 130 points in those five games against the big boys and they were one ill-fated Bachar Houli brain-fade from being 0-5.

The Dockers haven’t been the same team since they demolished Sydney with their ferocious, unrelenting pressure in the 2013 preliminary final. Ross Lyon sides have always prided themselves on defence, but there was something special and brilliantly unusual about how manic and seemingly omnipresent Fremantle’s pressure was in the 2013 finals series.

Teams built on defence have always been more sympathetic to me than those built on attack. The Hawks of recent vintage have been a joy to watch, but they’re so talented and so alien in their physical gifts that they’re more breathtaking than endearing.

The 2013 Dockers weren’t short on talent either, but they seemed to succeed primarily because of work ethic, selflessness and cohesion – concepts eminently more relatable to the everyman than the extra-terrestrial athleticism of a Lance Franklin. Their working class style of play combined with a history of unthreatening ineptitude made the Dockers one of the easiest teams for neutrals to support in a long time.

The vigour and mania that defined Fremantle’s defensive pressure in that 2013 finals run seems to have faded away in the past two years. The Dockers of 2014 and 2015 have grinded their opponents into submission, whereas the 2013 brand bludgeoned them into oblivion.

The team’s game style seems to have matured, relying more on structure and order to succeed, as opposed to embracing chaos. This is likely by design, an ageing team needs to pace itself. But in the maturity process the Dockers have lost what made them so special – sometimes there is nothing as intimidating and thrilling as the energy of immaturity.

The knock on Fremantle under Ross Lyon has always been that they don’t score enough. Since Lyon took over in 2012, the Dockers have ranked 12th, 12th, seventh and (this year) 10th for points scored. On the surface these rankings are damning, but they’re also misleading. You don’t need to score a lot of points to win, you just need to score more than your opponent, and under Lyon the Dockers have ranked second, first, second and first for points against.

A mediocre offence is not a death knell for premiership aspirations. Only two teams in the league scored fewer points than the 2005 Swans but that didn’t stop them from winning the flag. Collingwood in 2002 and Lyon’s St Kilda in 2010 were both minutes away from premierships despite ranking a middling eighth and ninth for points scored during the season. Hell, the 2013 Dockers ranked 12th for points scored and probably would have won the grand final if not for Nat Fyfe’s wayward goal-kicking and Hayden Ballantyne’s nervous breakdown.

The Dockers can win with defence – the problem this year is that their defence hasn’t been good enough in big games. On average the 2015 Dockers concede just 69 points per game, but in four of their last five games against top eight sides they’ve given up 94 points or more, with the one exception the game where Richmond kicked a woeful 10.18.

In each of those five games Fremantle has allowed their opponents to score at least every 1.86 inside 50 entries, a shockingly high frequency. By comparison, for the season the Hawks have scored every 2.02 inside 50 entries. In essence, over the past three months against top eight sides Fremantle’s defence has allowed their opponents to be a better, more efficient version of Hawthorn going forward.

If their defence isn’t at 1989 Bad Boy Detroit Pistons levels, the Dockers don’t have the offence to compensate. Ross Lyon has preached the importance of scoring more freely the past two years, but smooth offence and the Dockers have been a volatile, unfulfilling relationship. Occasionally there are highs – notably last year’s round one demolition of Collingwood and kicking 17 goals in a win against Hawthorn – but offensive fluency is generally nothing more than a passing fancy for Freo.

Last week’s loss to North Melbourne was a perfect microcosm of Fremantle’s offence. A brilliant, fluid first quarter of incisive kicking and lightning ball movement that produced seven goals was followed by three quarters of stagnancy that resulted in a combined total of five goals.

In the third quarter against North both Garrick Ibbotson and Michael Walters played on immediately from marks with quick handballs into the corridor only to mistime their deliveries and miss their targets, resulting in turnovers. The symbolism was clear – the Dockers are trying to be more offensively-minded, it just doesn’t come naturally to them.

Personnel availability is also an issue entering finals. Nat Fyfe will play the first week of finals, but whether or not he’s going to be ‘Nat Fyfe’ is as ambiguous as the term ‘periostitis’ is for the medically non-educated. Matthew Pavlich’s Achilles tendon is an ongoing concern, as is the match readiness of Ballantyne, if he does in fact return.

Alex Silvagni and Ryan Crowley (remember him?) are also question marks for finals given their brain-fades of various offensiveness (Silvagni’s being much worse for mine, but adjudged to be 11 months less offensive by the authorities).

And yet, despite the health concerns, the perpetual offensive woes and recent defensive struggles, there the Dockers sit, on top of the ladder with a fortnight to play, virtually guaranteed to be one home game from being one home game away from a grand final.

Who’s to say they can’t turn it on in September? Who’s to say that the ability to inflict otherworldly defensive chaos won’t return to a veteran side that knows it only needs three big performances, two on their home turf, to win the club’s maiden premiership?

We have four years of evidence to suggest that the Dockers are never going to be an elite offensive side, but we also have just as much evidence to suggest that they are much better defensively than they’ve shown over the past three months.

The Eagles are banged up and the Hawks are going to have to win a final interstate for the first time since 2001. If the defence returns, Pavlich is healthy and Aaron Sandilands is giving first use to David Mundy, Stephen Hill and a fit Fyfe, the Dockers have a clear path to a grand final where anything can happen, as they unfortunately can attest to.

As uninspiring as Fremantle’s form has been over the past three months, ultimately the home-and-away season is just about setting up the starting positions for the finals. On that front, the Dockers’ form is better than anyone’s.

Fremantle’s current percentage of 122 would be the worst percentage for a minor premier since 2006. Who finished top of the ladder that year? The West Coast Eagles, who went on to win Western Australia’s most recent premiership.