Fremantle threatened in 2026. Many didn’t take them seriously, and eagerly awaited their capitulation. When they fell to Gold Coast by a point in the Elimination Final, it was as though those people felt vindicated.
“Told you they’d choke… told you they were no good… Failmantle…”
I’m sure you heard them all.
However, there was far more to this team than just one finals loss last year. Far, far more. What is often lost on people is the age of this Fremantle list. This is a team with the right pieces, at the right ages, in the right positions.
I remember back in the early 2000s, there were all these stupid phrases people would use to describe their teams in a workplace. One was called Tuckman’s Model when teams were first Storming, then Norming, then finally Performing.
So wanky, right? I remeber laughing when one of my bosses told me my team was in the “storming” phase. Seriously, I felt like storming out of there, or performing a slap to his head.
Anyway, if I go against all my instincts and use that model to assess the Dockers, I reckon they are now in the Norming part of their life as a team, and close to getting to the Performing stage. 2025 saw some wins that were genuine highlights – the win on the road against GWS was wonderful, and their pulsating one-point victory over Collingwood at the MCG was one of my favourite games of the season. But there were also let downs, culminating with a final they should have taken out at home agauinst the Suns.
Freo have the talent – I absolutely love their list. I love the mongrel of the forwards, the ability of the mids, and the stingy defence from the back six. on paper, they have everything you need to pinch a flag in the next couple of years.
But not every team goes from Norming to Performing. It is not linear.
Injuries, form drops… they conspire to derail the road to success.
Make no mistake, Freo is on the right path, but aiming for success and achieving it are two totally different things, and it is 2026 that will tell us whether the Dockers are finally the real deal, or they more resemble the one bloke you never had to really worry about. You know the one – always thratening to do something, but never actually doing it?
2026 looms as THE season for Freo. Even with their stars at a young age, the composition of the team seems near-perfect. If you’re a believer in making hay while the sun shines, 2026 is the year Fremantle gets to work.
If you’re reading all our previews, you can skip ahead a little bit – It’s the standard intro.
We’re steaming toward a new season, and as we do, it is time to turn our attention away from the glory of last year and look at the possibilities of the new one.
The players have been on the track for a while now – the Christmas break is over, and as we work through January, the charge into the new season ramps right up.
This is where premierships are won and lost. This is where improvements are made and lists come together. This is where the kids show if they’re serious or not, and young projects become the next group of stars. New faces, new colours, old heads with renewed passion… so much feeds into the making of a contender. And as the days tick down toward the intra-club clashes, practice games, and eventually the real stuff, questions are raised about each team and how they’re going to perform in this new season.
And that’s where HB and The Mongrel come in.
We don’t do things by halves here, at The Mongrel Punt. When we do a season preview, we go all in to make sure it is the best, most comprehensive coverage you’ll receive. We pride ourselves on it. If you want to read one season preview for your team, or any team, this series will provide what you’re after.
The way it works is as follows.
Each club has a minimum of 15 questions asked about the upcoming season, their coaches, their players, and their expectations. The answers are not glossed over. We dive deep on each and every one of them – some singular answers would normally be long enough for an entire column. The first five questions/answers are free for you to consume. The next 10-14 for each club are for our members, including a special appearance from Mrs Mongrel to throw her two cents in the mix.
Isn’t it a bit early for a season preview? Well, I suppose, but do you know how long it takes to write seven-to-nine thousand words? That’s 18 x 8,000… gets out the calculator… that’s 144,000 words. The average novel is about 85,000 words, so buckle the hell up with these previews; HB goes deeper than anyone else covering the game..
Also, if there are any issues that arise after the publication of the preview for any team, they will be covered in standalone articles to act as additions to this preview.
You will not read a more comprehensive season preview than this – I guarantee it. This is where we start the run to the new season, and believe me – nobody does it better than The Mongrel.
Let’s get stuck into the Dockers in 2026.
1 – WHAT DOES A FIT HAYDEN YOUNG MEAN TO THE MIDFIELD?
Every Fremantle supporter I speak to views Hayden Young the same way – he is the missing piece of the midfield puzzle.
Whilst Freo have both class and toughness in the form of Caleb Serong and Andrew Brayshaw, it is the size and long-kicking of Hayden Young that tantalises fans the most. His early seasons were dogged by injury, but it appeared as though he’d managed to put those woes behind him, with 67 games from 2022-24.
However, just as Freo were starting their ascension in 2026, those woes returned and Young, now one of the Dockers’ prime movers, managed just nine games.
When you drop a final by a point, little things like consistency and the ability to do those extra yards over the season seem to make a difference. Young was one of the best for Freo in the loss to the Suns, but his fitness, and his body failing him, may have been the difference between an Elimination Final and a top four/double chance finish.
That’s how important he is.
Young’s class is evident. He is a powerful runner, can break away from stoppage, remain composed, and spot up a teammate inside 50. With multiple targets, good decision-makers are vital. Despite being subbed in or out of four of his nine games in 2025, Young managed to hit 4.56 score involvements per game. If he plays games out, that jumps to over six, easily.
So much is made of the injuries to Sean Darcy, and how he deals with his fitness, but the real concern is whether Young can get himself right, and remain right for the whole season.
When we line him up alongside Serong and Brayshaw, it gives Fremantle one of the most imposing midfield trios in the caper, but when you take Young out of the equation… well, they don’t write stories about the Two Musketeers, do they?
A fit Hayden Young means that the Freo onball contingent is the rival of any in the league, and with both Darcy and Jackson feeding them at stoppages (and Mason Cox pinch-hitting, as well) first use is going to become the weapon that the Dockers use to destroy the opposition.
2 – WHAT DOES MASON COX ADD TO THIS TEAM?
It’s popular to have a crack at Mason Cox.
He’s outspoken, wears sunglasses when he plays, and is not even an Aussie. Worse… he played for Collingwood!
But there has been a lot of unfair criticism of his game over the years, and I expect it will continue now that he is in Freo colours. Cox has a lot left to give – big men don’t suddenly get smaller, and as a marking target inside 50, he has the capacity to take a heap of heat off the current structure of Josh Treacy, Patrick Voss, and Jye Amiss.
He doesn’t replace any of those guys – not yet, anyway. Their roles are their own to lose, however, by having Cox play the dual role of ruck/forward, the Dockers have added a seasoned premiership player who can clunk a mark regularly.
It’s amazing how many big men find that task quite difficult.
Cox also offers a fantastic target for defenders under pressure looking for an option. I call this the “Get out of Jail” marking option, and he has excelled in this role over the years. Drifting up through the wing, he is often the beneficiary of a mismatch. If that is identified by the rebounding defenders, Cox’s presence gives them a great chance at taking the grab, settling things down, and resetting the chessboard.
Do I expect him to play every game?
No… on paper, Freo looks a little top-heavy with him in the team. However, I do expect him to make valuable contributions in the games he does grace the field with his presence.
The five-man bench works for Cox and Freo. It gives them the chance to play another big without limiting the run and carry of the team, and should one of the big guys find themselves in injury trouble, Cox is the perfect weapon to deploy for a half of footy.
He’s signed a two-year deal, and I get that some were a little concerned with that. Don’t be. He is remarkably resilient, and in a role that will not have the game resting on his shoulders, he could be a real surprise packet for this team.
Yeah, people don’t like him – that’s their problem. He has made a terrific career as someone who hadn’t picked up a footy until he was 23. Almost 12 years later, he joins the Dockers and gives them a valuable marking option inside 50 and around the ground.
If all he does is stretch the defence and makes life a little easier for other marking forwards, then the investment in him was a good one.
3 – DOES THE MCVEE SIGNING FLY UNDER THE RADAR?
I am sure it got press in WA, but from the wider AFL community… crickets. And that is a poor reflection of how important this move could be.
Judd McVee was coming along brilliantly at Melbourne. At 22, the former rookie draft pickup has played 63 games in three seasons, slotting into a strong, young Melbourne defence and providing a solid rebounding option. However, what people miss when they use numbers as their only key indicator is the nuances that made the McVee signing important.
And that’s what I am here for, right?
McVee lightens the load on Jordan Clark and gives Freo a viable second option for class distribution by foot from defence. Luke Ryan actually had more Rebound 50s than Clark last year, but we can attribute that to the fact that Ryan took so many kick-ins. Those kick-in/play on/long bomb outside 50 stats quickly accumulate, but in general play, Clark was the man the Dockers looked to.
Now, with McVee back there, Clark is no longer the be-all and end-all of exiting fifty.
He’ll still be used as preference number one, but having McVee means that the Dockers can now change things up.
This also releases Ryan to be more of a target from kick-ins, as opposed to being the man rushing back to take the freebie.
The trickle-down effect of all this is the Fremantle defence becomes tighter, due to McVee’s ability to defend small forwards, and his kicking ability sharing the load.
How this impacts Ryan’s overall game will be interesting. I would not be at all surprised to see a drop in production from Ryan, when it comes to sheer numbers. That said, I can also see it making him a better defender, if that makes sense?
Without the additional responsibility of having to work himself free and being a rebounding source, himself, Ryan can actually play a more defence-oriented role, and when he has done this in the past, he makes the Freo defence hum.
A strong trio of Alex Pearce, Brennan Cox, and Luke Ryan as the pillars, with Heath Chapman, Jordan Clark, and Judd McVee combining at ground level, provides Freo with the combination to combat most forward setups, which makes the acquisition of McVee one of the moves to keep an eye on throughout 2026.
4 – WHAT DOES MURPHY REID DO FOR AN ENCORE?
I know I am preaching to the choir here, but the Dockers got a gem when they picked up Murphy Reid with pick 17 in the 2024 AFL Draft.
He has the Ron Evans medal to prove it.
Playing across half-forward, Reid demonstrated his footy IQ just about every time Freo hit the park. His ability to read the play, make good decisions with the footy, and know when to hit the front-and-centre contest was a joy to behold, as he quickly became the small forward that teams feared the most at Freo.
With 25 goals to his name, and 5.5 score involvements per contest, Reid became an integral part of the Fremantle offence, and with a year to settle into the system, huge thighs are expected.
And he has the potential to deliver.
You know, we went through that phase in footy where clubs just started drafting athletes and hoped to teach them how to be great footy players. It has come back the other way, now, with genuine footy players now doing the work to become athletes before they’re even drafted.
Murphy Reid is a footballer. Some of the things he does on the field, you just cannot teach. The way he moves with the footy, the subtle half a step one way before doubling back the other – that is instinctive. It’s a way of losing your opponent that athletes don’t have, and have a heap of trouble learning.
Reid does it like he is playing in his backyard.
Surrounded by talent, he is in the advantageous position of being able to feed off the contests of his big men (Treacy and Voss crash packs) whilst also possessing the skill and composure to rove the footy, assess the situation, and hit a teammate with a pass inside 50. With increased confidence in his abilities, and another preseason to improve his tank, Reid is set for a monster year.
So, if we were to set the pass mark for him in 2026, what would it be?
Is 20 touches per game unrealistic at this point? He was at 14.5 last season – it’s a pretty big leap, but I think this is within his grasp. A goal and a half per game? He was at 1.0 per game in 2025, so this is another decent step I feel he is capable of making.
But the one I want to see elevated is the disposal efficiency. Last year, despite being a highly-skilled player, Reid ran at just 67.4%.
I put this down to fatigue. He worked so hard to get separation and win the footy, that by the time he got to the point where he disposed of it, he was buggered! That’s where this pre-season kicks in.
A fitter Reid spells trouble for the competition. With Isiah Dudley looking leaner, and Sam Switkowski hopefully able to get a whole season (only two of his eight seasons have seen him play 20+ games), the Freo smalls could feast in 2026.
And at the head of the table should be Reid. His 2025 was excellent. If he can better that as his encore, the Dockers automatically become a more dangerous unit.
5 – IS THIS SAM SWITKOWSKI’S LAST CHANCE AT A BIG YEAR?
Oh, I was just writing about him… almost like I planned it, or something.
I’ve got another section on a bloke who has always come across as a bit of a tease, to me, but I reckon Switkowski fits the bill, as well.
When I sit down to write these previews, there have been a couple of times over the years where I have yapped on about him needing to have a big year. And he never quite gets there.
Form, injuries… a lethal combination of the two – they have conspired to limit Switkowski to playing the role of a serviceable half-forward. But I have always thought of him as more than that.
I’ve always looked at the requisite stats for a small forward as a goal per game and a tackle inside 50. That’s probably why I have so often felt that Switkoski has missed the mark. He hasn’t had that goal per game at all during his career, and his defensive pressure has fluctuated, as well.
In 2024, his tackling was great, as he averaged 1.9 tackles inside 50 for the year. It was his career-high, and I expected something similar again in 2025.
Nup… those tackling numbers fell off a cliff, dropping -1.1 per game to the lowest average from him since 2021.
Switkowski is now 29. In terms of his peak, this is probably close to his last year at his best. He needs to make hay while the sun is shining, and that means he needs to make this season his best. With 105 games over seven years in the game, there is an argument that he has not got the best out of himself.
Fair or not, he has another chance to do just that in 2026. The stars may need to align, and everything may need to click, but a Sam Switkowski that averages over a goal per game, and bumps those tackles inside 50 back up… he becomes a vital cog in the Fremantle pressure machine.
It may very well be the last time I write that. I hope he makes good.
The remainder of this article, and the next 16 questions are for our members. They support me, and I provide for them. It’s a good deal.
Oh… a Mongrel paywall… the worst of all paywalls. We’re on the march to the 2026 AFL season and it all begins here. The Mongrel’s Big Questions Season Previews are THE best in the business. If you know, you know… if not, maybe it’s time to find out. Pre-Season, Practice Games… we’re all in. Dump the mainstream lip service and dive into articles like this – you will never look back. If you don’t want to, that’s fine. You’re welcome to re-read the first five questions again, but if you do… there is a heap more below.
