Harbour City Show Down

It’s a funny thing being a Freo supporter, your team is on top of the ladder and yet you still find yourself glancing at the ladder wondering how many more you need to win to feel comfortable for a top two finish. As I pondered where my insecurities could have come from, I cast my mind back to August 2024, Freo ended July equal second on the ladder, a cruisy game coming up against a woeful Essendon, and seemingly destined to return to September action.

4 bruising weeks later, the last game of the season, playing at home, we just needed a win. Port stood between us and finals. We fell apart like a Christmas cracker hat. Hopes Dashed.

Two years later and hasn’t the world changed. The US is getting pantsed by Iran, Pauline is the preferred Prime Minister and Freo are two games clear on top of the ladder while Port languishes in 15th spot.

Fremantle travels to Adelaide Oval sitting proudly on top of the AFL ladder, fresh off a performance for the ages, to face a Port Adelaide side that has been hit by the injury equivalent of a meteor strike. The bookies have the Dockers as unbackable favourites and the ‘Flagmantle’ craze is just starting to take off.

Before we get to this week’s slaughter, errr game, let us take a moment to recall what happened last Thursday night. Because it was, quite frankly, absurd. In the biggest home-and-away game of the season, a top-of-the-table blockbuster against Sydney billed as a Grand Final preview, Fremantle went goalless in the first half. Nothing. Zero. For only the third time in the club’s entire history. Half the Purple Army had already begun mentally planning the walk back to the station.

And then the Dockers kicked one hundred points in the second half, including a scintillating nine-goal final quarter, to bury the Swans 15.21 (111) to 10.13 (73). A 38-point win, built on a fourth-quarter blitz that had goals raining down on Optus Stadium. Josh Treacy booted four, Alex Pearce was colossal in defence, and the entire competition was reminded, in the space of sixty minutes, exactly why this team has led the ladder for two months. If Port needed a scouting report on what’s coming, that was it: a side that can go missing for a half and still put you to the sword by six goals.

Now, to this week. It would be unkind to enjoy another club’s injury misfortune too openly, so we will restrict ourselves to simply listing it. Port Adelaide will run out on Saturday without Zak Butters (syndesmosis and, as an out-of-contract free agent, possibly having played his last game in teal), without Jason Horne-Francis (suspension), without Mitch Georgiades (concussion), and without Jack Lukosius (calf). That is four of their most important players, gone in a single week, from a side already missing captain Connor Rozee, Sam Powell-Pepper and Esava Ratugolea.

About the only thing going for it this week is their record against Freo at home, (7-1) and the faint hope that Freo repeats their Giants performance. Regrettably for them, even that faint hope is barely flickering. Since that first win against them, we’ve also won two more at Adelaide Oval this year against Adelaide and the Pies.

Meanwhile I know JL says he doesn’t have fun, but I can’t help feeling that the thought of the puns that come from having two big Cox playing milestone games at the same time contributed to Mason staying in the team. Bolton gets a rest, and the perennially injured Hayden Young gets another run against an easy opponent.

Freo by 10 goals. Josh Carr to reconsider his life choices.