Dockers Down Cats in a Classic — And Yeah, We Watched Every Kick
Right, so I wasn’t going to write about this one because it’s not the Eagles and my heart’s still a bit bruised from our year, but fair’s fair — what happened out at Optus Stadium was one of the all-time semi-finals and I’m not letting east-coast footy media pretend it happened in some vaccuum. Fremantle held off a red-hot Geelong outfit in an absolute classic, and Luke Jackson was an absolute unit all night.
The Old “Travel Doesn’t Matter” Line Again
Every finals series we get the same tired script from the Melbourne-based panel shows — oh the Cats will just roll over, WA teams never get finals footy, blah blah. Well here’s the thing, over here in the west we’ve watched Fremantle cop the same guff for years and last night they answered it the only way you can, with four quarters of genuine ticker. Geelong are the minor premiers, they’ve got Dangerfield still pulling strings at his age, they’ve got Sicily marshalling that defence like he’s been doing it a decade. And the Dockers still had them petrified in the last quarter.
I’ll say this much as an Eagles fan who’s had to sit through some rough years — watching a fellow WA club front up against a genuine top-two side and not blink, that does something for the soul. It’s not about barracking for Freo, because look, I never will, but it’s about this state getting the respect it’s owed. We’ve been shipped interstate for finals for years while home ground advantage sits comfortably in Victoria more often than not. Last night Optus Stadium was rocking like I haven’t heard it in ages, and the Cats found out real quick that travelling west isn’t the free kick some pundits like to pretend it is.
Luke Jackson Standing Tall
Can we just talk about Jackson for a sec. The bloke has had his critics, fair or not, but when Freo needed a genuine focal point standing up in the biggest moments, he delivered. Ruckwork, marking overhead, the lot. There’s a reason clubs fight over blokes like this and it’s nights like last night that justify it. He wasn’t just solid, he was the difference between Freo cracking under the weight of Geelong’s push and Freo actually holding the line.
And it wasn’t just him. The Dockers as a unit looked like a side that had finally worked out how to play finals footy without falling in a heap in the last ten minutes, which if you’ve watched this club over the years, hasn’t always been the case. Say what you want about Freo’s ceiling this year but they showed something in that last quarter that you can’t coach — composure under real heat.
Nick Watson’s Bag Of Tricks
Watson pulling out his usual wizardry doesn’t surprise anyone who’s watched him this year, the kid’s a showman and good luck to him, footy needs blokes who can produce something out of nothing. But it’s worth noting — even with Watson doing Watson things and Sicily marshalling the defensive stocks, Geelong still couldn’t get over the line. That tells you plenty about where Fremantle are at right now, and it probably tells you plenty about Geelong’s premiership window too, which — and I say this as someone with zero love lost for either club — might be closing quicker than the Cats faithful want to admit.
What This Means For September
Look, I’m not about to sit here and pretend I’ve got some deep emotional stake in Freo going deep into finals. But every time a WA club performs on the big stage it chips away, just a little bit, at that lazy assumption that footy quality lives entirely east of the Nullarbor. The Eagles have had our years in the sun, we know what it feels like when the whole competition has to sit up and take notice of a team from over here. Last night Fremantle earned exactly that kind of notice.
What happens next week is anyone’s guess. Fremantle will need to back it up against sides that have had more finals continuity in recent years, and we all know how quickly a club can come back to earth after an emotional classic like that. But for one night, in front of a packed and absolutely deafening home crowd, the Dockers proved a point that a lot of us in this state have been banging on about for ages — WA footy isn’t a curiosity or a travel inconvenience for the ladder-toppers, it’s genuinely part of the conversation.
A Word On The Umpiring Chatter
Already this morning I’m seeing the usual pile-on about a couple of contentious free kicks in that last quarter. Look, I wasn’t behind the goals so I won’t pretend I had the perfect view, but from my lounge room a couple of those calls looked soft to me, and plenty of fans on both sides reckon the same thing about different moments. That’s finals footy for you though — every contentious call gets replayed a thousand times when the margin’s that tight. Doesn’t mean anyone’s got it in for either club, it just means the pressure amplifies everything, including whatever the boys in green are seeing in real time.
The Bigger Picture For WA Footy
At the end of the day this was a cracking advertisement for footy in this state, and I hope the folks running fixturing and finals scheduling took note. We’ve earnt more of these nights, not less. Whether it’s the Dockers or, one day soon hopefully, the Eagles again, WA has shown time and again it can produce sides capable of matching it with the best from Victoria, and crowds that make Optus Stadium one of the genuine cauldrons of the competition.
So fair play to Fremantle. Not my team, never will be, but a win like that is good for the whole state and honestly good for the competition. Geelong will be shattered, and rightly so given the season they’ve had, but there’s no shame in going down in a match that people will still be talking about come next September.
