{"id":91011,"date":"2026-09-14T13:47:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T03:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/?p=91011"},"modified":"2026-09-14T13:47:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T03:47:25","slug":"luke-jackson-is-the-dog-in-the-fremantle-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/2026\/09\/luke-jackson-is-the-dog-in-the-fremantle-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke Jackson is the Dog in the Fremantle Machine\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s a scene in Succession <\/em>where Logan drags Kendall to go and see the family of the kid that he Chappaquiddicked. In classic Succession <\/em>fashion, the camera isn\u2019t doing too many flashy things. It\u2019s closely focused on Jeremy Strong\u2019s face as he works through an extraordinary amount of anguish and guilt, processing pictures of the kid that he couldn\u2019t save that we occasionally see through his eyes.<\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t need to be Spielberg to pull off that shot, but for it to work the person that you\u2019re 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.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luke Jackson is similarly key to Fremantle\u2019s success. Fremantle doesn\u2019t pull a lot of tricks to make things easier on their stars in large part because their stars, especially Jackson, are so good. That\u2019s been a welcome change from Justin Longmuir, who overcoached his side in previous years and constrained the attacking talent on the list.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take Fremantle\u2019s back half ball movement this year as an example of Longmuir simplifying things. He\u2019s been comfortable with that simplification in large part because he has Jackson playing like this, and it\u2019s worked. For the season, Fremantle has been the second best back half scoring team. They\u2019ve been one point better than Brisbane.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You watch Brisbane move the ball at their best and it\u2019s short, incisive kicking attacking the corridor. Their leading patterns across the ground are complex and difficult to track and their skills are impeccable.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fremantle kicks it long, generally in the Jackson direction, and assume he\u2019ll either mark the ball but know that he won\u2019t lose the contest and their mosquito fleet of Bolton, Reid, Young, Serong etc. can swoop on it and drive the Dockers forward from there.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s essentially all they do, and it\u2019s what they did on Friday night against Geelong to beat the Cats\u2019 vaunted front half game.<\/a> He\u2019s one of very few that can make Geelong feel their lack of a real ruckman. It\u2019s not a coincidence that Geelong had two of their three worst front half games for the season against Jackson. He\u2019s 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.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But separate to his work as a bailout conduit and skeleton key for Fremantle\u2019s back half ball movement is his stoppage work. Truly the guy is a freakshow around stoppage.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2026everything for him. The Dockers scored 76 points from stoppage, 45 of those coming from centre bounce<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His effort to set up Pat Voss\u2019 goal in the third quarter was emblematic of his dominance.<\/a> 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.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the night, Jackson had 25 disposals, 15 contested, 2 goals and 12 score involvements.<\/a> He also led the game in ground ball gets with 11, which underlines his athletic freakishness.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the season, in large part because of the role Jackson plays in Freo\u2019s two best scoring methods, he has been involved in 8 scores a game, that\u2019s 29% of all Freo scoring. He\u2019s fourth in the competition in score involvements behind only Daicos, Heeney and Warner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, despite all the evidence of his statistical dominance and the eye test that shows his importance as a player to his side\u2019s structure, the most important thing he does for Fremantle is more ethereal: He gives them a bit of dog. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Him with Fremantle is like adding a Miranda Priestley attitude to Andy Sachs<\/a>. He along with Alex Pearce gives what could be a pretty team that might want to turn its toes up an edge.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His third quarter was proof.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u00be 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<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Put another way, Jackson was pivotal to all 4 goals that Freo kicked in that 3:45. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No other player in the competition has the physical presence that Jackson has when he\u2019s playing with his hair on fire. He\u2019s an earth-shattering player at times, with an intrinsic need to destruct and destroy.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Jackson factor will decide the premiership. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s 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\u2019t doing too many flashy things. It\u2019s closely focused on Jeremy Strong\u2019s face as he works through an extraordinary amount of anguish and guilt, processing pictures of the kid that he couldn\u2019t save that we occasionally see through his eyes.   You don\u2019t need to be Spielberg to pull off that shot, but for it to work the person that you\u2019re focusing the camera on has to be good. If it was Jason Statham in that scene, something tells me it would be a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":91012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8298],"tags":[],"hub_post_cat":[],"class_list":["post-91011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australian-rules","category-guywholikessport"],"acf":{"md_tip_date":"","md_tip_date_end":"","md_market_url":"","tip_date":"14\/09\/2026","event_country":"Australia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91013,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91011\/revisions\/91013"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91011"},{"taxonomy":"hub_post_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hub_post_cat?post=91011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}