Dockers Cop A Perth Reality Check Courtesy Of The Hawks
Well, strike me down with a Ken Hinkley clipboard, but Fremantle just got done at home in a final, and done properly. Hawthorn rocked up to Perth on Thursday night, kicked six goals to one in the first half and never let the Dockers back into it, running out 32-point winners in front of a cracking crowd that I reckon left the joint wondering what on earth just happened.
A record crowd for all the wrong reasons
Look, credit where it’s due – a record Perth crowd for a final is a beauty of a thing and shows just how far footy’s come over here in the west. We’ve been banging on for years about how footy-mad this state is and how the schedule makers and the ladder-makers back east never quite give us our due. So it’s nice to see the turnstiles clicking over in record numbers for a qualifying final.
Trouble is, all those punters rocked up expecting to see the minor premiers cruise it, and instead they watched their team get put to the sword by a Hawthorn side that clearly didn’t read the script. Hawthorn under Sam Mitchell have been building nicely all year, and Nick Watson’s turned into one of those match-winners you just can’t tag out of a game – he was pulling out his bag of tricks again, popping up in exactly the right spots and making Freo’s backline look about a step and a half off the pace all night.
James Sicily doing what James Sicily does
Say what you like about Sicily – and plenty of eastern states commentators have over the years – but the bloke reads the ball in flight as well as anyone in the competition right now. He marshalled that Hawthorn defence beautifully and it meant Freo’s forwards, who’ve been reliable all season, just couldn’t find any easy supply. When your key defender’s having that sort of night, it changes the whole complexion of a final.
And that’s the real story here isn’t it. Fremantle came into this thing unbeaten at home all year, top of the ladder, everyone tipping them for a home prelim at the very least, and Hawthorn just turned up and dismantled that in a first half onslaught that the Dockers never really recovered from. Six goals to one before half time in a final is about as brutal a scoreline as you’ll see, and it set up a margin that never really looked under threat in the second half.
The travel factor cuts both ways
Now I’m not going to sit here and pretend travel isn’t a factor in footy, because we West Aussies know more about that than anyone – us and the Dockers have been jumping on planes every second weekend for donkeys years while the eastern states clubs roll out of bed and drive twenty minutes to the footy. But here’s the thing that’ll annoy plenty of Freo fans – Hawthorn flew all the way over here and looked fresher, sharper and hungrier than the home side. So you can’t lean on the travel excuse this time, it was Freo that had the extra rest and home comforts and it didn’t count for a hill of beans.
If anything it shows that finals footy strips away all the ladder position stuff and just comes down to who wants it more on the night. Hawthorn wanted it plenty. They looked like a side that had done its homework on Fremantle’s ball movement and had a plan to shut it down, and they executed that plan about as well as you could ask.
What this means for the top of the table
The big kicker in all this is Hawthorn now sit pretty with a home preliminary final locked in, while Fremantle have to regroup fast and go again next week knowing their aura of invincibility at home has taken a fair old hit. Losing your first home game of the year in September, in a final, in front of your biggest home crowd – that’s not just a loss, that’s the sort of result that gets talked about for years if the Dockers don’t bounce back quickly.
And look, I’ll admit there’s a small part of every West Coast supporter that enjoys seeing our WA rivals cop one, because let’s be honest, the bragging rights battle between the Eagles and the Dockers never really goes away, finals or no finals. But I’ll also say this – a strong Fremantle is good for footy in this state, good for crowds, good for the profile of WA footy generally, so I don’t want to see them completely capitulate from here. There’s a difference between enjoying a rival’s bad night and wanting them to fall in a heap altogether.
Hawthorn’s finals credentials are real
What we can’t ignore is that this Hawthorn side is building into a genuine premiership threat. They’ve got a nice mix of the old heads and the young guns coming through, Watson looks like a genuine star in the making, and their pressure around the ball for that first half was some of the best I’ve seen from any side this finals series. When you can go into a hostile away final against the minor premiers and turn it into a procession by three-quarter time, that tells you plenty about the depth and belief in that playing group.
It also raises a fair question about how the rest of the competiton match up against them heading toward the granny. If they can do that to Fremantle on the road, sides at home are going to need to find something extra to stop the wave.
Where to from here for the Dockers
Fremantle aren’t cooked by any stretch – they’ve still got a lovely list, home ground support that clearly turns up in numbers, and a system that’s worked all year. But they’ll need some soul-searching after this one, because getting beaten by 32 points in a qualifying final at home isn’t a minor blip, it’s a genuine wake-up call. The pressure’s now on them to respond in straight sets footy, and history tells us that’s no easy task once you’ve been humbled like that on your own patch.
From over here in the west, I reckon this one’s going to sting the Dockers faithful for a good while yet. Big crowd, big occasion, and it all went pear-shaped in the worst possible way. Hawthorn deserve every bit of credit for how they went about it, and if they keep playing like that, a home prelim might just be the entree rather than the main course.
