At face value, Fremantle seem to be a bit of a 'nothing team' this season.
Currently sitting in 14th spot on the ladder with a record of 2-4 and a percentage of 91.2, on the surface there isn’t anything thoroughly remarkable that stands out from this squad making pundits sit up and take notice.
Their season right now is at a crossroads. Will they develop their younger players by giving them as much a chance as possible this season, or will they strive to make what is quickly becoming a heavily congested top eight?
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Sunday's match against the Eagles holds a lot of answers to the fortunes of Fremantle in 2020.
With what can now be ascertained as a tough draw to start off the season, Freo's young, injury-riddled squad is now being presented with the opportunity to show they mean business this year.
Initially, the opening set of fixtures for the Dockers seemed to be of average difficulty compared to the rest of the competition’s talent. Brisbane, riding high after finishing second last season with a young, energised squad, were easily the most apparently difficult fixture, while matches against Port Adelaide (10th in 2019), Essendon (8th), Adelaide (11th) and St Kilda (14th) seemed like matches that could go either way. Gold Coast, at the start of the season, looked like a very winnable fixture.
What we can now safely say is that this is probably one of the hardest opening fixtures to be dealt.
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Port Adelaide, Brisbane and Essendon all sit in the top 4 and look the real deal, and despite seeming somewhat inconsistent, St Kilda and Gold Coast are rejuvenated outfits. Factor in that this is a young team playing away from home in a hub on the other side of the country, and the results become a bit more forgiving.
The only game Fremantle were blown away in was against Port Adelaide. Yet there’s only one team in the competition to beat them, and that is Brisbane. In all of Port Adelaide’s wins, they’ve averaged a margin of 54 points. Fremantle lost by 29.
In every other game they’ve either lost by a narrow margin, or won: a six-point loss Essendon was followed by a twelve-point loss to Brisbane, succeeded by the aforementioned Port Adelaide result and a thirteen-point defeat to Gold Coast.
A scrappy win against Adelaide was followed by an astounding six-goal turnaround against St Kilda where they began to show evidence that Longmuir is building their football identity.
Currently, Fremantle are third in the competition for rebound 50s. In both the wins, the Dockers dominated uncontested marks (+29 against Adelaide, +19 against St Kilda), with a disposal efficiency of 80 per cent and 78 per cent respectively. Against Adelaide, Fremantle employed a kick-handball ratio of 2.24, and won the uncontested possession count by +34 against St Kilda.
In simple terms, when they win, Fremantle are using the ball effectively and predominantly by foot whilst retaining possession and picking when to rebound off the half-back line - not too dissimilar to Longmuir's old club Collingwood.
However, in their losses, a generally low contested possession and tackle count is reflected, which may be indicative of a young side failing to bring their A-game week in, week out. Coming up against a mature West Coast outfit, they must bring that physical edge against the Eagles (as exemplified by Gold Coast and Port Adelaide) to really stand a chance.
Another point to consider is that Fremantle are suffering from some of their best players being stranded on the sidelines. Alex Pearce, Joel Hamling and Griffin Logue are all out injured at the moment, completely depleting their back line of any first-choice key defenders and putting a severe strain on an already young team.
At the moment, it is Fremantle’s young guns getting the job done for them at the moment.
Andrew Brayshaw and Adam Cerra are putting up similar, if not better numbers than last season in 20 per cent less game time. Caleb Serong and Hayden Young are showcasing exactly why they were so highly touted in this year’s draft, with Serong providing some nice polish in the forward-half, whilst Young is looking extremely comfortable rebounding off the half-back flank in tandem with Nathan Wilson.
Sean Darcy, Griffin Logue, Bailey Banfield and Darcy Tucker are all on the cusp of their peak years, and look ready to make the next step.
With 10 of their starting twenty-two players from the St Kilda match in the ‘prime’ age of between 24-29 and their best players such as Nat Fyfe and Michael Walters barrelling towards 30 (whilst Mundy is already there), Fremantle are in a unique position.
To date this season, they are showing they can match it with some of the best teams in the competition. There is no doubt that their future looks promising.
But Sunday's match against a West Coast side who don’t look great (albeit back in their home state) will provide an honest assessment of where their season is truly at.
