Fremantle now hold the grim record of the worst season start, by a mile, of a previous season’s minor premier.
Richmond’s 0-5 stood for 33 years for good reason. The idea a side that finishes atop the ladder could collapse more spectacularly the following year is perplexing.
The Tigers had finished 18-4 in ’82. The following season, they didn’t just go 0-5. In addition to getting flogged by the reigning premiers Carlton, three of the five losses were to sides that had missed the finals in ’82, including the wooden spooners Footscray.
It was a shocking start from a previously dominant side, but perhaps the writing had been on the wall. A few legends were gone or on the way out. In 1983, 36-year-old Kevin Barlett managed 37 goals from 19 games in his final season, and was well down on possessions too.
Richmond ended up 10th in a 12-side league in 1983, and would not play finals again until 1995.
How does Fremantle’s horror start compare?
In Round 1 they were away from home and flayed by the Bulldogs. The Dogs were at full strength and have continued to look good since, but being held to 38 points must have set off the alarm bells somewhere in Fremantle’s think tank.
Round 2 saw a 26-point loss at home to Gold Coast. It looked bad at the time, given Gold Coast won just four games in 2015. With the benefit of hindsight it looks even worse – the Suns are awful. The 33-point loss to the Eagles next round was flattering, with West Coast kicking 12.20.
Round 4 was bright for Fremantle with a strong effort against North which collapsed under the Waite – yes I am making that pun – of North’s impressive last quarter. After such a performance away from home against the undefeated league-leader, the next game at Subiaco against Carlton looked like a dead certainty.
Instead it was a catastrophe. Both sides played like second-tier WAFL teams. Fremantle’s performance was, in the context of the match against North, as inexplicable as it was dismal.
An improved showing against the Crows didn’t prevent the foregone conclusions of losses to GWS and the Hawks. In short, the start is significantly worse than Richmond’s in ’83.
Fremantle has been savaged by injuries to key players such as Sandilands and Fyfe, both long-vital players. The Dockers have also been hamstrung by the fading power of Matthew Pavlich. The heart is there, but the leg speed and the sure hands are gone.
In an increasingly even, hotly contested competition – the slightest slide can be profoundly costly. And any lapse in concentration – deadly. The Dockers threw the kitchen sink at North, but could barely get out of bed against the Blues.
Against Hawthorn, Adelaide and North the intensity and endeavour was present – but skills ran hot and cold. It’s difficult to say the Dockers’ game plan no longer works, because at times there doesn’t appear to be a plan anymore. Perhaps the plan was predicated on a level of quality among the personnel which is just not there anymore.
Ross Lyon loves an honest trier. Players like Tendai Mzungu and Garrick Ibbotson, who starred at WAFL level and plug away in the big league. These blokes are unspectacular but solid, performing a role without setting the world on fire.
These sort of players can slot into a very good side and hold their own as part of a unit, which is what they’ve done at the Dockers… until now. Sandilands, Fyfe and Pavlich are like the most important straws in the game of KerPlunk. Pull them out and the whole thing collapses.
Fremantle almost certainly won’t emulate the Richmond of 1983-1994. They’ll get it together eventually and win a few home games this year, then start the rebuild they didn’t expect to need.
Perhaps Fremantle’s fall isn’t as surprising as it looks, as bad as home losses to Gold Coast and Carlton (at the time) look. Towards the end of 2015, the Dockers ship started to list alarmingly…
In Round 20, the Eagles comfortably beat the Dockers, who lost their next game to North. Freo beat the then dismal Melbourne in Round 22, before copping a 69-point hiding from Port. Resting players or not, this was hardly the best preparation for the finals. Fremantle were then extremely lucky to beat Sydney at Subiaco, 10.9 to 7.18, before the Hawks bundled them out two weeks later without much fuss.
Rather than staging the most dramatic collapse from one season to the next, it may be that Fremantle were just one of the weaker sides to ever hold aloft the McClelland Trophy.
Chris
Guest
The dockers are being let down by their medical team. Which comprises of unqualified. Out of touch antiques. This is football not playschool. Get medical staff who know sports medicine and are professionals. Show Ken and the other clowns the door.
Wilson
Roar Guru
I did not say that they are not up to AFL standards Just that I think that the Hawks and some of those from other Teams are looking better then those they you have compare from the Freo team at this point in time.
EddyJ
Guest
Which coach do you think doesn't run his list to the ground? Isn't it up to administration and recruiters to sort out those sort of things? You don't think that Leigh Matthews didn't run his list to the ground when he coached three premierships in a row? I just don't subscribe to this Lyon-bashing at all. He has taken teams to more grand finals than any other current coach, except for Clarkson. 20 finals over 10 years of coaching – a 65% winning record. You’ve got a strange idea of failure. "Lyon has never built a list, never developed young players". I keep hearing this as a criticism, but what does it actually mean? Doesn't every coach "develop a list". If you mean developing a young team from scratch, the opportunity for that doesn't happen too often. GWS, Gold Coast, Western Bulldogs between 2011–2014, Hawthorn 2004–2006. Developed Fyfe, Walters, Mayne, Mzungu. Saw the opportunity at both St Kilda and Fremantle, and was appointed. What did you expect him to say? "No thanks mate. I want to coach at a club where can I develop a list – give me Melbourne".
Macca
Guest
Don - "You sound like you think disposals in the backline count for something." Now I know a Freo supprter will find this hard to believe but in "modern football" AFL teams like to put their best users of the ball in defence because backline disposal are where everything is set up. They also like to play people who can take "intercept marks" instead of just spoil the ball because it quickly turns defence into offence. Simply stopping an opponent and being unable to kick well isn't enough these days which is just one of the reasons Freo are struggling so much these days - 13th for rebound 50's (and given 4 of the 5 teams below you are teams that son't allow the ball inside defensive 50 to rebound from - Bulldogs, Hawthorn, Geelong & West Coast 13th is terrible) and 16th for disposal efficiency.
anon
Guest
"Lyon is 52, still a young-un in coaching terms, and has only coached for 12 seasons. Still very very useful. He’s still got some coaching years in him, but it’s probably not going to be at Fremantle." Lyon has never built a list, never developed young players in 10 seasons of senior coaching. In 10 seasons he done that exactly ZERO times. What we do have proof of his Lyon running a club's list into the ground. In 10 seasons of senior coaching he's run a list into the ground and failed to plan AT ALL for the future TWICE now at TWO different clubs.
Sami
Roar Rookie
WINNER!
johno
Guest
12 season and missed finals once so far (his first). This will be his second season. Pretty good win loss record.
Don Freo
Guest
You sound like you think disposals in the backline count for something. When Brand is able to shut down a Tom Lynch or a Tex Walker...maybe then you could have him shine Pearce's shoes. If you think players like Pearce, Weller and Bkakely are not up to AFL standard, Wilson, I'll have to alter my perception about you and start reading you like I read Anon and Macca.
Macca
Guest
Johno - "other teams didn’t figure him out he just lost crucial cattle such as Johnson in round 10 and Fyfe in round 12" You could argue other teams figured him out long before that just his Crucial cattle (ie Fyfe) was so talented it didn't matter.
johno
Guest
I think you mean 2015 anon ... and other teams didn't figure him out he just lost crucial cattle such as Johnson in round 10 and Fyfe in round 12 Seriously the margin in the final term against the Hawks was at one stage 9 points with Freo's best player hopping around on one leg still winning contested ball, Then Sheridan and Walters both inexplicably drop sitters. Strange things happen that alter the course of games that are out of the coaches hands. The biggest thing that helped the Hawks in that game was Clarko crying about the West Coast favoritism in the previous Perth final. Freo certainly did not get any home crowd treatment from the umps
EddyJ
Guest
Malthouse had coached for 28 seasons and was much older (60?) than Lyon by the time he landed at Carlton, and it seemed like it purely for vindictive purposes, with a point to prove. Carlton signing Malthouse, and for so long, was in hindsight, a mistake – it just never felt quite right either. Gold Coast have landed their own Malthouse, signing up Rodney Eade, which I think is not going to end well, possible as soon as this season – so much talent there, but not much is happening, and Eade might not be the right person for the job. Lyon is 52, still a young-un in coaching terms, and has only coached for 12 seasons. Still very very useful. He's still got some coaching years in him, but it's probably not going to be at Fremantle.
Macca
Guest
"Steady on. ‘Unmitigated disaster’. Come on, the Titanic was a disaster, this is just a game of football." If the titanic was painted purple and white I dare say we would have don declaring that it's maiden voyage was an amazing success - every crewman was absolutely elite in their role, the designers decisions to not put on enough life boats was incredibly wise given it ensured a fantastic uninterupted view and it would also be claimed that the ships intended destination was in fact the bottom of the ocean via an iceberg all along and any rumours that suggested they had planned to arrive in New York were utterly false.
anon
Guest
"Steady on. ‘Unmitigated disaster’. Come on, the Titanic was a disaster, this is just a game of football. Lyon is an excellent coach, and has an excellent record (even if Fremantle are currently 0–8)." It's a disaster in the world of football. Malthouse had an excellent record as well. Should Carlton have re-signed him for a further 5 years?
EddyJ
Guest
Steady on. ‘Unmitigated disaster'. Come on, the Titanic was a disaster, this is just a game of football. Lyon is an excellent coach, and has an excellent record (even if Fremantle are currently 0–8). Looking at the crystal ball, Lyon's coaching seems to have a synchronicity – 5 years at St Kilda, 5 years at Fremantle. Finals at both in all years, except for one (assuming 2016 is out of the question for Fremantle). Three top four finishes at both clubs. Reached grand final in two seasons at St Kilda, once at Fremantle (lost all of them!), 11 finals at St Kilda, 9 finals at Fremantle. He might finish up at Fremantle at the end of this year, and probably be at a club that is talented, but seriously under-performing. Such as Brisbane or Gold Coast. AFL in Queensland is in dire straits (as far as on-field performance is concerned), and I have a feeling the AFL might do something similar to what they did in 1998 when they appointed Leigh Matthews as Brisbane coach. Justin Leppitch can't coach, Rodney Eade could coach once, but not anymore. I'd say that Fremantle will release Lyon – he's done as much as he can at Fremantle, in the same way he did as much as he could at St Kilda – and will be appointed to either Brisbane, or Gold Coast. Before people start to ridicule that idea, it's exactly what he did at the end of the 2011 season, when he jumped from St Kilda to Fremantle. Sometimes it takes a dud season to realise that it's time to move. There were great ambitions for Fremantle and Lyon in 2016, but it looks like everything might have fallen apart in that relationship. It's just very odd that a team that was so great between 2012–2015 has, with a few minor changes to personnel, landed at the bottom of the ladder after eight rounds, with no wins.
anon
Guest
I agree 100% with everything you have written. Sums up my feelings about Lyon's failings. This is an unmitigated disaster. It's almost getting to the stage where an independent inquiry of some kind needs to be held at the club to figure out how they arrived at this point and how a club can avoid it happening ever again. 2010, 2011, Malthouse was a coaching mastermind. By 2015 he was written off as a coaching dinosaur (in fact he was in 2014). People are a little slow to pick up on this, but this is Lyon's fate despite being contracted at the club until 2020. There might be someone who rolls the dice again with Lyon like the Suns have done with Eade, but Lyon will be on the nose by the end of next season. "An argument can be made that in order for this club to go forward, continual bottom 4 finishes and some elite draft talent are the way forward.' How did that work for Carlton, Melbourne, St Kilda, Gold Coast, Brisbane? It takes years to bare fruit, if at all. How many false dawns have cellar dwellers had over the years? Even GWS with all their unprecedented amount of first round talent are only now just becoming consistently competitive. Freo can finish bottom for the next 5 years and still have nothing close to the talent at GWS's disposal. In the meantime, all that losing destroys team morale, destroys a club's culture, in fact it creates a negative, losing culture that seems impossible to extract themselves from.
henry
Guest
Crozier hahahahahahahaha he is terrible!!!
henry
Guest
exactly wilson well put. Don Freo is embarrassing. Will it take a winless season to take the purple specs of and realise his team is an absolute basket case? I think so.
Macca
Guest
Wilson - but you are using stats - don't you know stats don't count - all they do is show who is getting more of the ball, using it more effectively, laying more tackles, taking more marks and kicking more goals - they can't measure only those things that you can see from WATCHING the game like who is getting more of the ball, using it more effectively, laying more tackles, taking more marks and kicking more goals!
Wilson
Roar Guru
Brand is getting more disposals per game compared to Pearce and is more accurate with his disposals and is showing more skills then Pearce has over his 20 games career. and Hartung Vs Weller 7 Games 8 11.4 Kicks Per Game 7.8 11.3 Handballs Per Game 5.6 22.7 Disposals Per Game 13.4 3.1 Marks Per Game 2.6 And Hartung has been playing more inside midfield then Winger this year. So at the moment I think the Hawks players are in a lot better skill at the moment then the one you have said from Freo and watching games confirms this to me.
Macca
Guest
And yet Freo still sit 0-8 having lost home games to Carlton and the Suns - how can such a talent laden side be unable to win a game?