Why This Has to Be Fremantle's Year

At the start of last year, I compared Fremantle to Catherine Tramell from Basic Instinct. I knew that they would probably let me down, but they were just too hot to listen to my better judgment.

With that much back and forth last year, you’d have to send me to a psychiatrist if I believed in them again.

Well, send me away. Catherine looks better than ever, ice pick under the bed be damned.

But make no mistake, this has to be the year for Justin Longmuir.

They were stacked heading into last year and found, over the course of 2025 the best inside 50 retention general forward in Murphy Reid, and a second key forward in Patrick Voss.

This list has far too much attacking juice to be the eighth highest scoring team, led by a coach who has been in charge for six years and is 1-2 in finals over that span.

He has to release the shackles and let his team’s attacking players play, as he started to do over the last month of last season.

Over that period, they did what they should do: scored.

For the season, they averaged about 85 points. Over the last five games before the finals, they scored over 95 four times. The only time they didn’t was when they managed to kick 25 points under their expected score against Brisbane, finishing with 5.14.

At least 95 points has to be the standard this season.

This is a team with, alongside GWS and Adelaide, probably the best balanced forward line in footy. They have two gun key forwards in Josh Treacy and Patrick Voss, talented, speedy smalls in Murphy Reid, Sam Switkowski, and a perfect in between player in Jye Amiss.

Beyond them, players like Shai Bolton, Hayden Young, and Luke Jackson can all venture forward and kick goals.

This is a team full of weird players and Emma Stone in Bugonia type aliens who do things that normal players can’t do but are really and truly excellent.

They should be petrifying going forward.

They showed that most clearly in their round 24 win against the Bulldogs. In the second and third quarters of that game, they attacked the game and handballed through pressure, giving their speedier players room to roam and kick into open forward lines.

They exited long and aggressively through Luke Jackson and backed their smalls to get on the move in crumbing situations and be able to beat the aggressively postured Dogs back to goal. They were often right, transitioning the ball with run and handball, taking the fifth-fewest marks of any game last season (they were last in total marks) on their way to their second-best score.

Andy Brayshaw must have felt like Andy Dufresne leaving Shawshank as he received handball after handball running forward rather than with his back to goal.

But if that game was a show of what the Dockers can be, it was also a show of their self-imposed limitations.

In the final term, the Bulldogs brought their trademark aggression and Fremantle went into damage limitation mode. They spent 60% of the final term in their back half and virtually every possession was on the half back flank.

That game is perfectly microcosmic of the Longmuir era.

Prior to that last quarter, he spent a month succeeding by squeezing his defenders up, taking more risks, and kicking roughly one extra front-half goal per game over the final five compared to the rest of the season.

Then, in the defining moment of the game, he reverted to “safety” and it almost cost his team the game.

I know that he’s never going to be an Ange Postecoglou style iconoclast, but why can’t he be Chris Fagan post 2023?

Why can’t he trust that his defence can stand up to an increased risk appetite in attack? Freo has good defenders, led by Alex Pearce, and an elite defensive structure.

Beyond that, the midfield and forward personnel is good enough to assume clearance dominance and let you at least start from the position that you will own field position and play a front half game.

In order to do that, they have to be more aggressive when they win clearances rather than going laterally and slowing down after clearances so they can revert to their base defensive principles. To that end, the Dockers were sixth in total clearances, but ninth in total stoppage scoring and 15^th in expected chain scores from stoppage last year.

They won them, but just weren’t any good at using them to kick goals.

The return of healthy Hayden Young and potentially more midfield time for Murphy Reid should help to sharpen the tip of the spear and drive them to better outcomes.

That aggression from the midfield is especially important because the biggest hole in their list is the lack of juice running from the back half, outside of Jordan Clark.

This should be a Marty Mauser type footy club. They should be arrogant to the point of being obnoxious because they know how good they are.

Instead, over the course of the Longmuir era, they’ve been the fat guy who makes the orange balls.

I’m choosing to believe that changed toward the end of last year.

I am choosing to believe that the last month of last season is the truth for Fremantle and Longmuir, and the final they lost to Gold Coast was because of the rain and not because they went back to not wanting to kick any goals in a big spot.

If that’s true, and if it’s true that Longmuir is willing to shift the dials just slightly in terms of his appetite to take risks with the ball, Fremantle should be top-4 and is a serious contender.

If it’s not true, Longmuir’s days should be numbered.