Fremantle have become the most interesting team in the AFL

Move over Geelong. Fremantle, by virtue of their past seven days, have become the most interesting team in the AFL. What comes next will shape their fortunes for not just the next season, but the next five.

Ross Lyon has two years remaining on his current deal with Fremantle, which will take him to a full, six-year term with the Dockers upon its conclusion.

The departure of two of his lieutenants, Brett Kirk and Simon Lloyd, who had been at his side from the 2013 and from the start of Lyon’s reign respectively, have given him the chance to go after some fresh talent to help take the organisation to the next level.

Do Fremantle bite the bullet, and extend their leader’s tenure for another year or two, giving him the space to properly mould his list and his coaching staff in an effort to bring the Dockers their first flag?

The brass have already shown faith once, extending Lyon’s original tenure by two years in 2014. To me, they would be wise to do so. After all, Lyon’s ascension to Fremantle was unmistakably about stewarding a solid young list, crafted over successive drafts, and taking it to the promised land.

These are the first in a series of very interesting decisions to be made at Fremantle over the next few months.

Make no mistake, Fremantle are not done. In fact, there’s plenty to suggest they haven’t peaked, and have further growth ahead of them. Don’t write Fremantle off yet.

In case you missed it, the Fremantle Dockers went down to the Hawthorn Hawks in last Friday’s preliminary final, by 27 points. That doesn’t do the game justice, though, with an unheard of 15.3 on shots for goal off Hawthorn boots putting the game beyond the reach of a less polished Fremantle side. The Dockers and Hawks were within two scoring shots of one another for the vast majority of the game, excluding Hawthorn’s period of dominance to end the first quarter.

All told, the Dockers kept Hawthorn, now the undisputed greatest team of the modern era, to just 19 scoring shots, down from a season average of 29. The Hawks averaged 23 shots in their six regular season losses: Lyon won the tactical battle, but just couldn’t quite get it done where it matters.

It caps another year in the Ross Lyon era that fell short of the mark, albeit an improvement on the straight sets finals exit in 2014. If we extend Lyon’s record out further, beyond his tenure at the Dockers (and I’m sure you’ve seen this stat elsewhere), it takes his record in finals to sub-50 per cent, compared to his regular season record of close to 70 per cent.

But, please, this does not make Fremantle a bad football team. In fact, they’ve accumulated the third most wins of any single team over the past three years, behind premiers Hawthorn and Sydney. It’s just yet to translate to a win in the last game of the season.

Indeed, it’s fascinating to see how all of a sudden Fremantle have become this ‘unfulfilled’ football team, just five months after many were saying they would miss the eight all together this season. I wasn’t one of them. It’s almost as though many in the media just make it up as they go along. But I digress.

The Dockers showed in the first half of 2015 that they have the skills and physical attributes to play premiership-standard football. They never really put sides to the sword, Hawthorn style, but when they were at their peak Fremantle would play their opponents out of the game early. More often than not, it was lights out at quarter time.

It is another finals exit, nonetheless, and what has followed in the hours and days after Friday night’s disappointment have added a level of intrigue at Fremantle that exists at no other team in the AFL.

Most of it centres on the coach, and whether he will persist with his adherence to defensive structure or look to score more often in an effort to build a premiership team. I see this as far too simplistic an argument: offence versus defence isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition.

Indeed, this year’s two grand finalists ranked second (Hawthorn) and fifth (West Coast) in defensive efficiency rating (DER) in 2015 despite being the first and second most potent scoring sides.

It sounds like an obvious thing to say, but the only way you can score goals is with the ball in-hand, and the only way your opponent can score goals is if they have the ball. Offence and defence are interrelated; you can prioritise one over the other, sure, but the overlap between the two is too much to treat each independently.

Fremantle’s first half of the season is a testament to this. In the first nine games, the Dockers were the highest ranked defence in the league, but were also in the top six on offensive efficiency rating (OER) as they forced their opponents through a fine mesh screen. They got out to nine wins early on, and effectively coasted to the Round 23 finish line.

They did the same against a stodgy Sydney in the first week of the finals, and did their utmost to do it to Hawthorn. Well, they actually did, before some interventionist umpiring closed the gap. Fremantle were on. David Mundy’s filthy move in the first minute spoke to where his team were at mentally.

But alas it didn’t come to pass.

Ross Lyon’s post match press conference – have a listen if you haven’t already – was incredibly honest, open, and the coach didn’t hold back. He acknowledged his team’s success, but also its failings. He protected his players, and put himself up as the one accountable for the loss.

When the journalists fell back on tired heuristics about lack of forward line players, he got the baseball bat out. It had all of the markings of a man invested in his team and its success: improvement, development, getting better.

But more than that, it was finally an admission. Ross Lyon understands Fremantle’s problem: his team doesn’t have the forward line stars that those around him have acquired or developed. His assessment in his press conference was quite cutting: “We don’t have an extra $1 million in the salary cap to attract those big key forwards… we went after Kurt Tippett, Travis Cloke, Lance Franklin, Tom Hawkins, they didn’t want to come.”

Its been the Achilles heel of Fremantle for as long as I can remember – every time a key position player comes on to the market, Fremantle are mentioned as a team kicking the tyres. The biggest fish they’ve landed in recent times is Scott Gumbleton, who would have been a handy piece if not for his twine-like hamstrings. Chris Tarrant came before Lyon’s time, but ended up playing as a defender. Jake Carlisle has reportedly already rebuked the Dockers.

Indeed, the last time the Dockers landed a bonafide key position player that has made a lasting contribution was Luke McPharlin in 2001, 14 years ago. That says a lot.

It isn’t just the key forward stakes, though. Outside of Michael Walters, the Dockers are running dry in the small forward department too. Hayden Ballantyne simply can’t be relied upon to kick goals these days. Sure, he’s a great forward pressure artist, and demands a defensive assignment, but he’s too hit-and-miss where it counts.

The Dockers have a number of young up-and-coming small players, but none that project to be in the class of those available to the teams around them on the ladder.

That makes this upcoming trade period so important. And for the first time in the club’s history, a number of forward line players have publicly stated they wish to come to Western Australia. Sydney’s Lewis Jetta, Gold Coast’s Harley Bennell, and Greater Western Sydney’s Cam McCarthy have all stated, publicly or privately (to the media…) that they wish to continue to ply their trade in more familiar surrounds.

But Fremantle have historically been an incredibly conservative team when it comes to trading. Indeed, in the past five years, Fremantle have traded in just three established players (Jonathon Griffin, Tendai Mzungu, and Gumbleton), preferring instead to build through the draft. That’s worked for them well at this stage, and has meant that the Dockers have a sneaky-young list heading into 2015.

Which briefly brings us to the prospects of a number of their senior players. Fremantle’s 2015 list now has eight players that are 30 years or older on it – sounds pretty dire, right?

Here they are:

Luke McPharlin
Matthew Pavlich
Aaron Sandilands
Ryan Crowley
Michael Johnson
Paul Duffield
David Mundy
Colin Sylvia

We can already put a line through Sylvia. McPharlin will almost certainly retire, while the futures of Crowley and Duffield must be up in the air given how their 2015 seasons have unfolded. Sandilands (contracted for another year), Mundy (career best year) and Johnson will all play on, with Mundy in particular showing no signs of slowing down – indeed he hit the little red button.

That leaves Pavlich. The champ, who will be a walk-up hall of famer regardless of whether he plays on for another year and wins a premiership, has most certainly earned the right to take his time deciding whether he’ll play on for another season. While he may not be the around-the-ground threat he once was, like Ballantyne he commands a match-up, and still has the strength to match it with the big boys at AFL level.

My record on picking what players will do is patchy at best, so take this with a pinch of salt, but I think he goes around one more time. Perhaps he plays 12 or so games during the regular season – gets the Tim Duncan treatment – to keep him fresh for another tilt at September.

I don’t even think it’s that that will keep him going, to be honest. It will be the prospect of working alongside Matthew Taberner (who is still just 21 years old, everyone), Michael Apeness (20 years old) and McCarthy as they grow and develop in Fremantle’s system. Sort of like a player-coach, even though by all reports Pavlich sees his future in the media, not in the trenches.

But wait, I hear you gasp, Fremantle don’t trade! Well, I have a feeling this is about to change, big time. Club CEO Steve Rosich was on Melbourne radio over the weekend, and sent a very clear message to clubs right around the country: ‘We don’t do deals that don’t make sense, but guess what? We now know what we need, and are prepared to deal in order to get it.’

You see, Fremantle have used anywhere from four to eight picks in the national draft since 2010, and have built a list bursting at the seams with young talent. Contrast that to Lyon’s St Kilda teams, who were so top heavy and bloated by the time he was finished there that a full rebuild was required. Once you take out the four 30-year-olds from Fremantle’s 2015 list, the Dockers are actually almost as young as the West Coast Eagles.

They don’t need to pick high in the draft over the next two or so years, and can be expected to leverage the hell out of their first and second round draft picks, and perhaps a couple of their younger players, in order to bring in the forward line talent they need. Like Geelong’s quest for Patrick Dangerfield, Fremantle may find that the ability to trade future draft picks has come at just the right time for them.

Cam McCarthy and Lewis Jetta will be first round pick worthy, no bones about it. The Swans, by virtue of their trading ban (which limits them to bringing in a single player with a contract value of less than $450,000 in addition to players with salaries less than the AFL average) will likely be restricted to taking draft picks from the Dockers – although one of Fremantle’s young, emerging midfielders may help grease the wheels and keep Jetta out West Coast’s hands.

Cam McCarthy, who projects as a very good, 10-year key forward, will command at least one first round draft pick. Yet a player whom the Giants would target is a little more uncertain given they’re stacked at every position.

Harley Bennell is the interesting one. There have been stories linking him to Melbourne teams, but equally there have been stories stating he would prefer to come home to Western Australia. Bennell would add an outside presence that has been managed by Danyle Pearce and Stephen Hill to this point, in contrast to the three-prong sets available to most other teams around the top of the ladder.

Both Pearce and Hill are left-footed, too, while Bennell can kick on both sides. As ‘damaged goods’ Fremantle wouldn’t be required to give up a first round pick, but given there’s apparently some competition for his services the better the deal, the better the chance of landing him.

That’s three possible additions forward of the ball for Fremantle – with McCarthy nearly a lock to join and a one-or-the-other situation likely to unfold with either Bennell or Jetta. Regardless, it would give Lyon the tools he needs to tweak his gameplan to free up the play and capitalise on what is very clearly the best inside midfield in the game.

Which brings us to Fyfe. His Brownlow win was historically great for a number of reasons: that he missed four games, and that during his peak form (Round Four to Round 14), he polled a staggering 26 votes out of a potential 30 votes on offer.

How many votes would he have polled if he wasn’t injured in the second half of the year? It’s frightening, in many respects. What’s more frightening is that he’s just 24 years old, and based on his public profile in 2015, has the maturity of a 30-year-old.

Fyfe is a midfielder, who is very, very good overhead. His skill set, while not unprecedented, is as close to league-leading as Gary Ablett’s ability to play both inside and outside through the middle of the ground. He led the league in clearances, winning first use for his team some 8.7 times per game throughout the year. Fyfe is a central cog to Fremantle’s set piece machine.

Except he isn’t. Or at least, his influence on Fremantle’s overall midfield prowess may be a little overstated. Fyfe missed four games this year, but the rest of his midfield didn’t; Fremantle still won the clearances convincingly in Round 18 (+20), 19 (+8), 22 (+10) and 23 (+5), when the number seven was laid low by the stress fracture in his left leg.

The much vaunted depth through Fremantle’s midfield is such that Fyfe could be considered surplus to requirements. David Mundy and Lachie Neal have become an excellent one-two punch in clearance situations, with the likes of Clancee Pearce, Mzungu, Matt de Boer and Michael Barlow solid enough to contribute. Add the likes of Hayden Crozier, Tom Sheridan (if he manages to leave his house again), Max Duffy, Lachie Weller, Connor Blakely, and, well, the midfield is sorted for the next little while.

Exceptional forward line players are very hard to come by – Fremantle can tell you all about that. What if the Dockers have one right under their noses? I’ve written about this before, suggesting Nat Fyfe could become a centre bounce specialist in clearances, and then move more permanently forward of the ball.

A match-up would be nightmarish, opposition coaches would be left pondering if they should put a tall, small, agile, strong, overheard or groundball defender on him. Fyfe would have to improve his set shot kicking, but he’s shown in his short career that he has the mental fortitude to work at his deficiencies.

Both player and coach have talked this up in recent days. Whether it comes to pass is another question. In Fyfe, Lyon has a foundational player – one that he can build around, and help get him a premiership medallion that has so far eluded him for one reason or another.

Lyon’s players, for better or worse, have had the reputation of being workmanlike, tough to play, and gritty. Fyfe is all of those things, but he’s so much more.

The 2015 Brownlow medallist is very clearly the best player Lyon has had at his disposal. And within the next few years, he might just be Lyon’s first premiership captain.

The Dockers have become the most interesting team in the league in the past seven days. It’s time for the purple and white to go all in.