Fremantle Win 14 Straight While We Lost to the Roos. Lovely.

Fremantle have won 14 games in a row, Luke Jackson is playing like a man who has been personally offended by every ruckman in the competition, and somewhere in Melbourne a large group of Essendon supporters are sitting in dark rooms trying to process the fact that we just lost to North Melbourne.

Welcome to my Saturday. Pull up a chair.

First, the Dockers — Because We Have to Talk About Them

Let’s give credit where it is absolutely and undeniably due. Fourteen consecutive wins is not a heater, it’s not a purple patch, it’s not a run of soft draws. It is a sustained exhibition of football excellence that puts Fremantle firmly in the conversation as the best team in the competition right now. Full stop.

Luke Jackson has been the engine room of this entire run. The big man is doing things in the ruck and around the ground that are making opposition coaches age visibly. He wins the tap, he takes a contested mark 40 out, he hangs in the square, he finds a crumb inside 50. He is, by any honest assessment, the best ruckman in the game at the moment and it is not particularly close.

His performance against Gold Coast on the weekend was another chapter in what is becoming a very compelling personal highlight reel. The Suns did their best — and look, Gold Coast have shown they can be competitive this year — but Jackson and the Fremantle midfield brigade simply ground them down through the contest in a way that felt inevitable from pretty early in the second term.

What Makes This Fremantle Side Tick

The thing that strikes me about this Dockers outfit — and I say this as someone who has spent most of the year watching my own club underperform — is how structured they are without being boring. Justin Longmuir has built a side that knows exactly what it wants to do with the footy.

Their forward pressure is relentless. They don’t give opposition defences time to set. And when they get inside 50, they convert at a rate that makes you genuinely envious. There’s no panic in this group. They’ve been in tight games this year and found a way. That’s the hallmark of a genuine premiership contender — not winning the easy ones, but winning the hard ones.

Andrew Brayshaw has been magnificent in the engine room. Caleb Serong gets better every single week. And then you’ve got experience through the spine, genuine pressure forwards, and a defence that is organised and hard to break down.

Look, I’m an Essendon man. I don’t enjoy writing nice things about West Australian clubs. But fair is fair, and Fremantle right now deserve every bit of the praise that is coming their way.

Now, About Essendon and the Kangaroos

Right. Here we go.

I’ve been doing this long enough to know that bad losses come in waves and you just have to ride them out. I’ve covered the Jobe Watson saga, the supplements drama, the years of fourth place finishes, the coaches who came and went, the grand final we haven’t been to since 2004. I have, through all of it, maintained a certain grim resilience.

But losing to North Melbourne — a North Melbourne side that, with respect, is still firmly in rebuilding mode — is the kind of result that tests even the most battle-hardened Bombers supporter. It’s not just that we lost. It’s the manner of it. The Kangaroos wanted it more in the contest. They outworked us in the clearances, they were cleaner by hand, and they ran harder in the last quarter.

That is simply not acceptable for a Essendon side with the list depth and the experience we supposedly have.

The Midfield Problem Isn’t Going Away

Here’s the honest assessment, and I say this with the love of a long-suffering supporter: our midfield brigade is inconsistent in a way that would make a statistician weep. On the good days — and there have been good days — they can run with anyone. Merrett finds space, the ball moves quickly, we look like a finals team.

On the bad days we look like we’re playing in slow motion while everyone else has had an extra coffee. Against North, we were second to too many contests in the middle of the ground, and when you’re second to the contests against the Kangaroos, you should probably be having a very serious converstion with yourself about where your season is headed.

I’ve become, through years of club-related MRO heartbreak and tribunal dramas, something of an accidental expert on the rules of the game. I can tell you at what speed a bump becomes a reportable incident. What I cannot tell you is why Essendon keep serving up these inexplicable performances against sides we should be beating. There is no MRO charge for that. No suspension can fix it.

The Ladder View Is Not Pretty

The loss to North does real damage to our percentage and, more importantly, to our position in the eight. The teams around us are not going to stop winning simply because we need them to. Every game at this stage of the season is critical, and dropping one to a bottom-eight side is the sort of thing that can unravel a finals campaign with alarming speed.

Meanwhile, Fremantle — having now won 14 on the trot — sit comfortably at the top of the ladder and will very probably end the home and away season with a top-two finish. They get a second crack in the finals. They get more rest. They get momentum.

We, on the other hand, need to figure out why we can’t beat the Roos before we start worrying about September.

Can Anyone Stop the Dockers?

Genuinely, it’s worth asking. Collingwood can match them physically. Brisbane have the experience. Carlton, when they’re right, have the firepower. But Fremantle right now have something that is very hard to manufacture: genuine belief. This is a group that expects to win and knows how to do it.

If Jackson stays fit and the midfield stays healthy, I think you’d have to install them as premiership favourites. There, I said it. I need a lie down.

The Silver Lining (Bear With Me)

The only genuinely positive thought I can offer — and Essendon fans will know I am not given to easy optimism — is that the season is not done. We have the list to right this ship. The talent is there. What’s needed is the application and consistency that teams like Fremantle are currently showing week after week.

If we can find that — and it is a significant if — we are capable of making noise in September. We’ve done it before in more challenging circumstances. We’ve been to the other side of genuine adversity as a club and come back.

But first, we need to beat the teams we’re supposed to beat. Starting immediately would be ideal.

Fremantle, meanwhile, can just keep doing what they’re doing. Fourteen wins and counting. Credit where it’s due, as painful as that is to type.