There’s a scene in Succession where Logan drags Kendall to go and see the family of the kid that he Chappaquiddicked. In classic Succession fashion, the camera isn’t doing too many flashy things. It’s closely focused on Jeremy Strong’s face as he works through an extraordinary amount of anguish and guilt, processing pictures of the kid that he couldn’t save that we occasionally see through his eyes.
You don’t need to be Spielberg to pull off that shot, but for it to work the person that you’re focusing the camera on has to be good. If it was Jason Statham in that scene, something tells me it would be a bit different.
Luke Jackson is similarly key to Fremantle’s success. Fremantle doesn’t pull a lot of tricks to make things easier on their stars in large part because their stars, especially Jackson, are so good. That’s been a welcome change from Justin Longmuir, who overcoached his side in previous years and constrained the attacking talent on the list.
Take Fremantle’s back half ball movement this year as an example of Longmuir simplifying things. He’s been comfortable with that simplification in large part because he has Jackson playing like this, and it’s worked. For the season, Fremantle has been the second best back half scoring team. They’ve been one point better than Brisbane.
You watch Brisbane move the ball at their best and it’s short, incisive kicking attacking the corridor. Their leading patterns across the ground are complex and difficult to track and their skills are impeccable.
Fremantle kicks it long, generally in the Jackson direction, and assume he’ll either mark the ball but know that he won’t lose the contest and their mosquito fleet of Bolton, Reid, Young, Serong etc. can swoop on it and drive the Dockers forward from there.
That’s essentially all they do, and it’s what they did on Friday night against Geelong to beat the Cats’ vaunted front half game. He’s one of very few that can make Geelong feel their lack of a real ruckman. It’s not a coincidence that Geelong had two of their three worst front half games for the season against Jackson. He’s available to bail the Dockers out of their back half and essentially bypass the Geelong pressure web that destroyed the Blues last week, and has destroyed virtually every team this year.
But separate to his work as a bailout conduit and skeleton key for Fremantle’s back half ball movement is his stoppage work. Truly the guy is a freakshow around stoppage.
In a competition that is comprised solely of truly elite athletes, his power, size and speed shows up especially at stoppage. He was able to legitimately demolish Mitch Edwards by being too…everything for him. The Dockers scored 76 points from stoppage, 45 of those coming from centre bounce.
His effort to set up Pat Voss’ goal in the third quarter was emblematic of his dominance. From a forward pocket throw in, he effortlessly slid in front of Mitch Edwards and established front position. He then tapped it down in front of himself and was quicker to the ball than any Geelong mids with Oisin Mullin more worried about his assignment than getting the ball. He grabbed it, did a blind turn, kept his hands free through two tacklers, and gave a blind handball to Pat Voss who goaled.
On the night, Jackson had 25 disposals, 15 contested, 2 goals and 12 score involvements. He also led the game in ground ball gets with 11, which underlines his athletic freakishness.
For the season, in large part because of the role Jackson plays in Freo’s two best scoring methods, he has been involved in 8 scores a game, that’s 29% of all Freo scoring. He’s fourth in the competition in score involvements behind only Daicos, Heeney and Warner.
And yet, despite all the evidence of his statistical dominance and the eye test that shows his importance as a player to his side’s structure, the most important thing he does for Fremantle is more ethereal: He gives them a bit of dog.
Him with Fremantle is like adding a Miranda Priestley attitude to Andy Sachs. He along with Alex Pearce gives what could be a pretty team that might want to turn its toes up an edge.
His third quarter was proof.
As Geelong took the lead, Jackson locked in. After the 25:45 mark of the third quarter, with 3:45 to go in the quarter after Cameron kicked the goal to put the Cats up by 10, the Dockers kicked four goals before ¾ time to enter the final break up by 16. In that 3:45, Jackson kicked 2 goals, had another one disallowed, had the Voss assist I described earlier, got a clearance on his own and tapped another one down to Caleb Serong who hit a leading Josh Treacy for the goal that put Fremantle ahead.
Put another way, Jackson was pivotal to all 4 goals that Freo kicked in that 3:45.
Beyond all of that, he emasculated Mitch Edwards. He parked himself in front of Edwards at every ruck contest and dared Edwards to try and move him. Edwards failed.
He also emasculated every other Geelong player who got in his way. Standing in his way as he hurtled toward you must have been like standing in front of an onrushing train. Unsurprisingly the Cats got out of the way and the Dockers got on his back.
The anger and aggression he played with, particularly after that point, was Omicron level contagious. The Shai Bolton run-down tackle of Bailey Smith before the last inside 50 was full blown Jackson fever, as he launched at Smith like a squid attacking the lure.
No other player in the competition has the physical presence that Jackson has when he’s playing with his hair on fire. He’s an earth-shattering player at times, with an intrinsic need to destruct and destroy.
This Fremantle list is, in my view, the best one still alive in the competition. But for reasons of strategy and attitude, it only works with Luke Jackson playing well.
The Jackson factor will decide the premiership.