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The countdown to Round 1, 2023 has officially begun – so throughout January, I’ll be looking at all 18 AFL clubs and doing my best to put together an optimum team for the new year.
I’ll take injuries and suspensions into account, but this won’t be a predicted team for Round 1 – think of it more as a guide to what your team’s best 23 (the 22 starting players plus the new unrestricted substitute) could look like as the year unfolds.
Last week, I covered Adelaide, Brisbane, Carlton, Collingwood and Essendon; beginning this week is one of last year’s biggest surprise packets, Fremantle.
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The Dockers took a major step forward in Justin Longmuir’s third season at the helm: thanks to an underrated midfield and the most complete team defence in the league, they not only returned to September action for the first time since 2015, but managed to win a final.
The challenge in 2023 is obvious: keep on improving, fix the remaining weaknesses in the line-up, and turn a disciplined side full of potential into a bona fide premiership threat.
That won’t be a simple matter, however: with leading goalkicker Rory Lobb out the door, the Dockers’ scoring prowess will be tested even more than in 2022, where it was the thorn in their side that ultimately cost them an even deeper finals run.
To fix it, Longmuir has a Gold Coast reject, a veteran held together by sticky tape and prayers, and the most important teenager in the game.
Good luck, Justin.
Not a single member of the Dockers’ miserly backline made it into last season’s All-Australian team, which, depending on who you ask, is either a sign of their strength as a unit rather than any individual superstars, or further proof of the vicious bias against Western Australian teams by the Victorian-centric media.
Whichever one is your cup of tea, there’s no denying that Fremantle’s defence is incredibly tough to penetrate. Only Melbourne finished the home-and-away season with fewer points against, and only by three measly points. That’s a sizeable jump from 2021, when they had the seventh-most points kicked on them (and 382 more than the Dees).
Steven May aside, I’m not sure there’s a better lockdown key defender in the AFL than Alex Pearce. It’s hard to remember him getting beaten at all last year, and having managed a career-best 21 games, the oft-injury-plagued pillar has hopefully got his body right for a long career as Freo’s number one stopper.
Pearce’s presence leaves Brennan Cox free to zone off and intercept, a role in which he blossomed into the elite of the game in 2022. Cox is a perfect second tall defender as well where required – his contested defensive one-on-one loss rate is only marginally worse than Pearce’s, with both ranking in the upper echelons of the competition in the stat – making him all the more effective.
Luke Ryan is another ultra-cool head to marshal the Dockers’ backline. Considering the elite kicks Freo have around him – Hayden Young in particular – it’s worth noting just how much Longmuir loves the ball in his general’s hands. There’s a little bit of Brisbane-era Luke Hodge about the way he reads the ball coming in, and if either Cox or Pearce find themselves in trouble, Ryan is usually the one filling the leading space in front.
Young guns Young and Heath Chapman have become critical cogs as well. It’s a matter of if and not when Young owns an All-Australian guernsey for his work across half-back, with his left foot already one of the best in the game.
Chapman gets less fanfare and plays a more selfless role, minding dangerous mid-sized forwards from Bayley Fritsch to even Shai Bolton. He’s another Docker who can only get better, but with plenty of safe ball-users and intercept markers already in defence, he may have to bide his time before he can really be let loose as an offensive weapon. He’ll have to be content in the meantime with selfless efforts like this famous one from Round 1 last year.
Speaking of offensive options, Jordan Clark had a fascinating role last year for Freo. As a junior his breakneck pace was his calling card, but that didn’t quite fit the Dockers’ safety-first approach – and anyway, Brandon Walker was always around as the line-breaking option.
So he filled another role as a sensible defender who maintains his space on the outside, regularly presents for uncontested marks – only Ryan, Young and Cox marked the ball more last year than Clark – and was another workmanlike cog in the Dockers’ defensive machine.
It meant he only took seven running bounces last year – a full 106 fewer than AFL leader Adam Saad.
Freo’s main strategy last year when they had the ball in defence was one of patience: they weren’t afraid to switch the ball back and forth until options presented themselves, which explains the truly colossal amount of marks their backs took (Ryan, Young and Cox all finished 2022 in the top 13 for total marks).
I’d love to see that safety combined with a bit of extra aggression, especially with a forward line likely to be outsized but dangerous in open space. If Longmuir opts to add that string to their bow, Walker and especially Clark’s speed will become even more crucial to their chances.
(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
The Dockers’ midfield is a fascinating mix, and one which embodies their team as a whole.
In 2022, they ranked third-last for average centre clearances per game, despite the services of the most underrated ruckman in the game in Sean Darcy and an AFLPA MVP winner in Andrew Brayshaw. Yet they ranked seventh for total clearances, and second behind Adelaide for all non-centre clearances.
I observed last year just how well Freo organise themselves around the ball when they’re able to add extra numbers to the stoppage, but you could sum it up like this: the Dockers are masters of space around ball-ups. They’re able to keep it bottled up when the opposition wins the ball first, but then break away fast when it’s in their hands.
Oddly enough, it often fell apart in wet conditions, with the greasy ball playing havoc with their spread and their key backs’ nullified intercepting power leaving them vulnerable at the back; but they still have all the fundamentals of a very good midfield, with time on their side to improve all the key cogs further.
It’s for that reason that the arrival of boom new recruits in Jaeger O’Meara and Luke Jackson will make for interesting watching. It’s fact that the vast majority of new players take a bit of time to assimilate to a new gameplan, especially when it’s as sophisticated and layered as the one Longmuir and midfield coach Joel Corey have developed.
Darcy, Brayshaw, Will Brodie and Caleb Serong formed such a brilliant combination at stoppages, with each bringing their own strengths to the table: Serong as the in-and-under clearance machine, Brayshaw as the breakaway handball-receiver, and Brodie as a smooth-moving mix of both.
That foursome was at the vast majority of the Dockers’ centre bounces, with the now retired David Mundy the only other regular entrant apart from James Aish‘s dual tagging jobs on Clayton Oliver when they play Melbourne.
Whether O’Meara, undoubtedly a star when his body is right, is capable of integrating himself into that mix and taking on Mundy’s role might just determine whether the Dockers remain as brilliant at the coalface as they were last year. One thing’s for sure, it won’t hurt to have him at centre bounces to try and gain some improvement there.
(That might also mean that despite a stellar summer, Neil Erasmus is kept waiting for a serious crack at midfield minutes.)
Ditto Jackson: his best footy at Melbourne was played with a substantial ruck role alongside Max Gawn, and the Dockers have surely not thrown millions of dollars at him to take a punt on turning him into a key forward.
One can easily see Jackson developing into a Mark Blicavs-style mountain of a midfielder, capable of rucking around the ground and following up just as effectively at ground level. The conundrum to solve will be how this effects Darcy, a quintessential old-school ruckman who is a beast at the source but not quite as adept on the outside.
Thrice the Dockers tried a tandem partnership between Darcy and the now-departed Lloyd Meek in 2022, and it didn’t really work in any of them. The last time, in Round 23 against GWS, it was to allow them to alternate as a forward line spearhead with no true talls up there: they allowed Sam Taylor to pull in eight contested marks in one of the great defender performances.
Jackson is too good (and too expensive) to be a backup ruck to Darcy, and after an exceptional 2021 didn’t quite take the next step in that role behind Gawn at the Demons last year. He could still be absolutely anything, but for a side as structures-based as the Dockers, unlocking his full potential while playing him in the role most beneficial to the team is going to be a difficult tightrope for Longmuir to walk.
Blake Acres’ departure also leaves the Dockers with a wing position to fill – it’s quite a large hole, too, given Acres was arguably the best wingman in the game in 2022.
Aish is a lock as the defensive winger – for most of the year he played the role with underrated excellence, regularly pushing back into the backline to guard space or present escape options for his defenders, but every so often he’d explode with an exceptional game going the other way to remind you of why he was a top-10 draft pick in 2013.
I’d love to see Nathan O’Driscoll get first crack at the other wing. He’s got real potential as a major offensive threat in the style of Isaac Smith. He’s whippet quick and has a penchant for kicking miracle goals.
If he can combine that with Acres’ consistency and ability to present get-out options down the wing, he’ll be a menacing prospect running inside 50.
I made him my headline and the face of the article, so let’s not beat around the bush and get straight to talking about Jye Amiss.
There aren’t many 19-year olds who, having played just one AFL game for the season and missed months with a lacerated kidney, would be recalled out of the blue for a final. And then proceed to more than hold their own.
If that isn’t as good an indication as possible that the Dockers’ brains trust really, really rate Amiss, then I don’t know what is.
The challenge, though, is that now the Freo forward line looks even more threadbare than it was last year, when it was already their major weakness. Amiss’ key forward partners in their September run, Rory Lobb and decoy Griffin Logue, are both gone. In their stead are a new recruit fresh from Gold Coast in Josh Corbett, and an old hand who missed the finals after yet another soft-tissue concern in Matt Taberner. Plus whatever Jackson and/or Darcy can offer when they spend time down there.
The Dockers aren’t a team that can easily replace the 36 majors leading goalkicker Lobb provided last year, and while Corbett had a handy 2021 at the Suns with 23 goals from 14 non-medi sub games, he was quickly deemed surplus when Levi Casboult and Mabior Chol came in. At 190 centimetres, too, he’s more of a mid-sized third tall rather than the big banana they truly need.
Taberner is solid when he’s on the park: rangy, good overhead and a nice kick for goal, he’s good for his two goals a game and is capable of really feasting on a mismatch, like he did with seven against Essendon. But turning 30 in June and injury prone, you wouldn’t exactly be betting your house on him being able to step up and lead the attack.
At ground level, the Dockers are spoiled for choice: Lachie Schultz has been a revelation under Longmuir, kicking 30 goals in 2022 and finishing equal fourth in the league for tackles inside 50.
Michael Frederick isn’t quite as consistent a threat yet, but he has speed, skill, and that happy knack the best small forwards have of making things happen around them just through their presence.
So good were that pair that Michael Walters was almost an afterthought in attack for most of the season, providing experience and drawing a good defender as much as providing anything offensively; before winding back the clock in a brilliant display in the elimination final (not the first time he has run roughshod over my Bulldogs, I’ll have you know).
Throw in Sam Switkowski as well, whose pace and tackling pressure would be ideal to unleash as a substitute in a second half, all things being equal, and the Dockers know they’re sorted when the ball hits the deck inside 50.
The problem is going to be stopping big-bodied key defenders from assuming aerial supremacy, and preventing the ball hitting said deck in the first place. Freo ranked ahead of only North Melbourne for goal efficiency, averaging 1.5 points for every inside 50 in 2022. If that falls away, then they can forget improving: it’ll be all they can do to kick enough winning scores to stay in the eight.
Which brings us back to Amiss. He’ll see plenty of action in 2023, for a certainty. Nice and tall at 196cm with strong hands, he averaged two contested marks in his three games – superior numbers to either Lobb or Taberner. And unless he regresses like Josh Schache did, there will come a time over the next five years where he label him the best kick for goal in the game.
He’ll need plenty of help from the likes of Taberner, Jackson and Corbett, and I wonder if maybe even Josh Treacy will return from the cold after just four games and one goal last year as another big body in attack, though to do so may see them become too top-heavy without even the benefit of a greater aerial presence.
Nat Fyfe, too, is sure to play a role – injuries restricted him to just seven games last year, alternating between the midfield rotation and a permanent forward spot. With only six goals, it didn’t quite pay off, but with the Dockers needing as many forward marking options as they can get and the control of the midfield ceded to Brayshaw and Serong, the captain will probably be needed most in attack, with only bursts on the ball where necessary.
But Jye Amiss is the future of Freo’s forward line, and already more important to his team’s chances than any teenager should be until he blossoms, it’s hard to see them filling the trophy cabinet with a first premiership.
Jye Amiss of the Dockers. (Photo by Daniel Carson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Backs: Luke Ryan, Alex Pearce, Heath Chapman
Half-backs: Hayden Young, Brennan Cox, Jordan Clark
Centres: James Aish, Caleb Serong, Nathan O’Driscoll
Followers: Sean Darcy, Andrew Brayshaw, Will Brodie
Half-forwards: Nat Fyfe (c), Matt Taberner, Michael Frederick
Forwards: Lachie Schultz, Jye Amiss, Josh Corbett
Interchange: Luke Jackson, Jaeger O’Meara, Brandon Walker, Michael Walters
Substitute: Sam Switkowski
Emergencies: Bailey Banfield, Neil Erasmus, Josh Treacy
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