Time For Revenge

Geelong are the only side to have beaten us in 2026, in a Round 1 capitulation we have spent fourteen weeks quietly seething about.

For one round, and one round only, in 2026, the Fremantle Football Club tasted defeat. The chef who served it was Geelong. On Thursday night, the kitchen reopens, and this time we're cooking. Let's relive the trauma, briefly, so we can move past it. Round 1, GMHBA Stadium, a balmy March evening in Geelong. Fremantle came out and laid down the law early, building a game-high 35-point lead late in the first half and looking, for all the world, like a side that had arrived. The Dockers stayed in front until the nine-minute mark of the final term. And then Geelong did what good Geelong sides do at the Cattery, flicking the switch, kicked 10 of the last 13 goals, and stole the game 110 to 100. Ten points.

That was fourteen weeks and twelve straight wins ago. The Fremantle that lost that night was a promising team finding its feet. The Fremantle that runs out on Thursday is the outright ladder leader, sitting at 12-1, averaging 110.8 points across its last five, with a defence that has become the envy of the competition and a forward line that opposition coaches now discuss in hushed, frightened tones. Same two clubs. Profoundly different Dockers. Geelong needed ten of the last thirteen goals to beat us at their place, in Round 1, having already played a warm up match. Imagine what they'll need now.

The Form Line Twelve in a row. The Dockers go into this one fresh off a 124-point demolition of North Melbourne in Bunbury, a game so lopsided that Patrick Voss had time to brush former Docker Griffin Logue aside with a "don't argue" and then look back at him for the cameras. When your forwards are posing for the camera mid-game, things are going well. Voss and Treacy kicked four. Jye Amiss has bagged 15 goals in his last five games. The three-pronged attack of Amiss, Voss and Josh Treacy continues to be one of, if not the most enjoyable thing about supporting this club in a decade. Geelong, in fairness, are no bunch of stragglers, they sit third at 9-5 and arrive off a comfortable win over Gold Coast. They remain a genuinely good side, well-coached as ever, with a midfield that can hurt you and a knack for finishing seasons strongly. But here is the number that matters most: Geelong have won just one of four interstate games this season. The Cats are a different animal away from Victoria, and Optus Stadium on a cold Thursday night, against a side this hot, is about the most hostile interstate assignment the fixture could have handed them.

Ins, Outs & The Sick Bay The team sheets are in, and while Geelong lose Bailey Smith (doesn’t like to travel), are without star defender Tom Stewart (concussion) for a second straight week, and are missing the dangerous Gryan Miers, Fremantle get healthier. We welcome back gun midfielder Caleb Serong, a three-time best-and-fairest and the beating heart of the engine room alongside Brennan Cox and Matt Johnson. Depth so good we can afford to omit Oscar McDonald, Jaeger O'Meara and Corey Wagner and barely break stride.

The Danger (Respect, Begrudgingly) We are one-eyed, not blind. Freo aren't great coming off the bye and Geelong have beaten us three times in a row, and have won three of their last four against us at Optus Stadium, a genuinely unsettling stat that we have chosen to deal with by not thinking about it. Patrick Dangerfield, ageless and still capable of turning a game in ten minutes, looms as the dangerman now that Smith is out. Max Holmes has been collecting 30+ touches for fun and will run all night. Jeremy Cameron up forward remains one of the genuine match-winners in the competition and the kind of player who can drag the Cats home on his own. If Geelong are to extend their hex over the Dockers, it will be Cameron kicking five, Holmes and Dangerfield dominating the middle, and the Cats once again finding that fourth-quarter switch they flicked in Round 1. The blueprint exists. The personnel to execute it, this week, is a little thinner than they'd like.

The Verdict The Stealth Night Forecast Revenge, served cold, under the lights. Thirteen straight, and the Round 1 ledger finally settled. This is the game the fixture owed us. The only team to beat the Dockers all year, on our deck, in our weather, in our Stealth Game, without their best player, against a side riding a twelve-game wave and welcoming back its star midfielder. Geelong are good enough to make it tense, they always are, and that recent Optus record demands we keep the champagne on ice until three-quarter time. But everything that can break purple's way has broken purple's way. Treacy, Voss and Amiss feast. Serong and Brayshaw own the middle. Bolton produces the moment that ends up on the news. And somewhere late in the final term, the scoreboard ticks over to the kind of margin that washes a March evening in Geelong clean out of the memory for good. TIP: FREMANTLE by 4–6 goals · STREAK TO 13