FOOTY’S A BREEZE
The Mandurah crowd hosted a solid 6,000 people to see what promised to be an informative contest if nothing else, between the Dockers and Crows. This match was played under the shadow of several Doctors, as not only were multiple stars ruled out through injury or the dreaded ‘awareness’, but an honest-to-goodness five-goal breeze had decided to rock up and almost completely delegitimise any analysis of overall tactics.
Whichever side had the breeze at their backs had the luxury of bombing it down the line, which was the route most taken. Jordan Clark and Nick Murray took great joy in launching intercontinental ballistic missiles from kick-ins, both starting multiple scoring chains from their defensive posts, as their opposition could only gain ground with short kicks or rapid handball chains. Mitch Marsh probably took the Best Wind-Assisted Highlight prize, sending a towering single-bounce shot from ten metres inside the centre square for six points.
Aerial defence was the order of the day and in a contest where protecting the drop zone of the ball could gain you thirty free metres off a bomb kick, you wanted your best talls out there Neither side had this luxury. For the Crows, who were already without Keane (ankle) and O’Brien (obsolescence), they had also lost Riley Thilthorpe to back complaints, ostensibly from carrying the side’s scoring last week. This not only meant Walker had to be flown over to Perth (a surprise to some), but allowed the aforementioned Mitch Marsh to drown his sorrows from losing to Zimbabwe’s T20 side with a fun kick-around. Hang on, I’m being told those are different people. Sam Berry wasn’t named, while Jake Soligo was also back in Adelaide with a heart issue, and best thoughts go to him. Unavailability even extended to the coaching staff, with Matthew Nicks being present, but handing the reins over to one of his assistants.
Fremantle, meanwhile, had basically sidelined their entire defensive cordon. Captain Alex Pearce had been made aware he had calves, Brennan Cox had actually hurt his, and Karl Worner was a late out with knee soreness. Luke Ryan was also in absentia, with a bunch of guys I’d never heard of drafted in, I’m assuming much in the same way Football Manager creates players for you if your real ones run out. With Adelaide getting first use of a ridiculous breeze, the makeshift tall trio of Josh Draper, Hugh Davies and some other bloke prepared for a tough start.
NO COUNTRY FOR SHORT MEN
But it was Adelaide’s tall defenders who were put under pressure first. Fremantle had broken through for an immediate clearance in what would become a running theme, generating a throw-in at the hotspot in some 15 seconds. Luke Jackson and Lachlan McAndrew, two of the most-talked-about ruckmen in the AFL vis a vis the new ruck rule, lined up on each other. Now, McAndrew had performed very well against Port Adelaide last week, with the massive caveat that his hardest opponent was Dante Visentini.
Against Jackson, he was completely outmatched.
Jacko turned a literal circle around the taller McAndrew and, having rendered his opponent confused, simply took the ball out of the ruck and snapped the first goal. This was also partially thanks to Jordon Butts attempting a chest mark rather than a spoil on the line, harmlessly catching it after the six points had been registered. His day would not improve.
Adelaide would generate their own chances from here, though. Toby Murray earned the first Crows chance from one of many, many holding the man free kicks, but missed from distance. Davies was then sent to Narnia by Darcy Fogarty, linking up with Walker to create a gilt-edged chance for Luke Pedlar, who at 183cm would remain the shortest goalscorer for quite some time. Marsh then goaled from somewhere around Bunbury, and several other Crows missed chances, including Pedlar who was highly dangerous for a second week in a row. Not wanting to be outdone, Jackson went down to full-forward, allowing Mason Cox to enter the game.
Unfortunately for me as a Crows fan, he was far from the comedy meme signing I thought he’d be, his experience proving the perfect foil for McAndrew. Being one of only two blokes in the whole league taller than Lachie sure helped, too. Jackson grabbing attention up front allowed Josh Treacy some open space to lead into, capping off a superb chain in which Murphy Reid featured multiple times.
Toby Murray then replaced McAndrew in the ruck, which on paper is a disaster as you’re giving up more precious centimetres. But what Murray loses on the roundabouts, he gains on the swings – in this case, in the post-stoppage phase of play, he was almost instantly able to find a mile of separation from his American adversary, using this space to set up Jordan Dawson for a trademark inswinging goal.
Cox then hit back with hit-outs, giving first use to Serong who broke free frighteningly easily. So too did Josh Treacy, way too quick for Jordon Butts for the first of many, many, many times in front of the Mandurah crowd. He converted his second from a fair range.
Now, remember how Mitch Marsh launched a bomb from the next suburb earlier on? Well, apparently Fremantle forgot, as Marsh legged one from the wing that cleared an unprepared Freo zone and landed in Darcy Fogarty’s breadbasket so well that he nearly dropped it. This, along with two misses from Jackson that combined for one point, saw Adelaide with a nine-point lead that felt like a fair reflection on the balance of play. Shame the breeze was worth five goals.
Toby Murray once again steered his side’s first chance of a quarter to the side from a free kick, but the Crows seemed to forget which way the wind was blowing. Before they could even think, Jordan Clark’s kick-in landed in Hayden Young’s hands, on the other side of the centre circle. Seemingly shell-shocked, the Crows merely stood by as Young found Amiss. His goal saw yet another tall get on the scoresheet. Not long after, the Crows are forced backward by a purple wave. Laird gets pinged for holding the ball on the point post by Josh Treacy, always good to see your flankers getting done by centre-half-forwards. This would be the first of multiple goals sourced from Rory Laird turnovers specifically.
Adelaide took a while to get used to going against the wind, eventually switching from their Luftwaffe indiscriminate bombing tactic to more measured but still up-tempo chip kicking, which generated a Walker chance. This missed, setting off a barrage of minor scores from both sides which was broken up by Tobyn Murray. He’s not to be confused with Toby Murray, although mistaken identity is the only reason I can explain Adelaide leaving him behind like Kevin McAllister – a wind-fuelled Patrick Voss kick sailing over an overcommitted Adelaide line, Tobyn marking basically in the goal square and scoring the final goal of a low-scoring term. Fremantle led by eleven.
FINE-TUNING THE ENGINE ROOM
So, while the second quarter’s scoring was also largely by tall men only, it would be remiss not to mention the experimentation happening in the middle of the ground. Josh Rachele was once again doing most of his work in the midfield and while not as outright effective as last week thanks to the opposition being capable of actually pressuring him this time, he still had some brilliant moments and helped contain Andrew Brayshaw’s influence. Charlie Edwards also attended most centre not-quite-bounces, his long boot pairing naturally with the breeze in the first term, while not being afraid to take on opponents in contests. These two largely provided the only positives of Adelaide’s midfield experiments as Jordan Dawson performed well, but not to the heights of his best-and-fariest 2025. With stoppages becoming as predictable as three-card-monte thanks to the breeze, speed became critical around the ball and Fremantle’s mix had that in spades. Shai Bolton echoed his Origin performance by being highly dangerous except when it came time to hit a target, and the acceleration of Caleb Serong and Hayden Young broke open channels that led to a disturbing amount of clearances – Young had eight to half-time. Jackson also began to filter into the midfield as an outside runner in the second half, and was effective most of the time. Amazingly, none of these fine performances were that midfield’s best.
Murphy Reid spent most of his time in the midfield, being exceptionally difficult for Adelaide ball-gathers to break free of. The amount of repeat stoppages catastrophically rose in the third and Reid was largely to thank for that. Around the ground, Rory Laird also took to man-marking him which just allowed the far faster Reid plenty of time to essentially do what he wanted. Laird’s lack of pace also bit him when, in the back pocket, Shai Bolton hemmed him in, smothered a chip kick and so generated Fremantle’s second goal from a Laird turnover.
Reid would lead all comers with 30 disposals and was so ever-present around the play that the number sixteen is burned into my monitor screen. Hugh Bond, normally a back pocket, was trialled on Reid but then Bolton would appear alongside, or Serong, or Young, and the run would just continue through quick passing. Adelaide were spared complete disaster as Fremantle’s counter plans typically relied on passing on a dime to a leading forward as the finisher – Amiss and Voss were unable to get the separation they needed for this to work, for which credit desperately needs to go to Nick Murray.
Billy Dowling was also trialled in the guts and while his running was as good as usual, his disposal in the clinches was often found wanting. Chayce Jones repeated his role from last week as a winger on occasion but to little impact, while Lachlan Sholl entered the game basically on half-time and showed glimpses, setting up a goal, but there wasn’t much to write home about outside of that.
Wagner and Erasmus also rotated through and were far from bit-part players, both impressing with how often they were able to get involved in dangerous chains of possessions.
And again, a big part of that was Mason Cox in the ruck. While the hitout numbers are very similar between the sides, Cox’s use of the body blocked McAndrew in particular from being able to get good enough body position to make effective use of the hitouts he got, whilst Cox was able to feed his far superior engine room much more efficiently.
The Crows weren’t completely out of it, fine field kicks from Nick’s brother, Toby, and his dad, Taylor Walker, allowed Pedlar to find an acre of space behind an underwhelming Judd McVee. He goaled and added another one when two Dockers collided, allowing Walker and Keays to link up and find Master Luke. Rachele capped off the scoring for the quarter by earning what honestly must have been the twentieth holding free of the day right on the arc. The wind carried it so much it cleared the fence and then some. Adelaide entered the lead six points up, with both teams having missed more chances than they’d converted in the blustery conditions. Adelaide, however, needed an otherworldly performance if they wanted to ensure victory.
ANCHORS AWEIGH
The Crows sure started like they wanted the win, Fremantle’s array of inexperienced talls repeating their trick of cannoning into each other to allow Brayden Cook an eternity to shoot, scoring to extend the gap to 12. Laird then gets an intercept of his own, the Crows rebound and Josh Rachele has the chance to drive the dagger home from a long way out against the wind. The chance, of course, is to pass to Cook who’s so open that the sideline camera is able to zoom in on his face like an Arrested Development reaction shot. Rachele fails to take this chance, and misses. So, of course, when Laird offers up a lame duck of a pass 60 metres from the Dockers’ goal that is naturally intercepted, the Dockers prove that they’re actually a serious and good team by scoring. Michael Frederick blazes it home from 40 on the run in a finish that, if you only watched Adelaide’s subsequent misses of far easier chances in this quarter, would have you believe this kick was on a different day entirely.
The worst of these chances had to be Taylor Walker’s. He’d played much in the way his 2026 should be expected – as a really handy third tall, breaking packs and generating chances with his still-elite field kicking. He climbs over yet another underwhelming performer in the Freo backline, this time Oscar McDonald, directly in front, fifteen metres out. His shot helicopters so far to the left the camera almost loses track of it.
Then came the moment the game was won. Tobyn Murray, who showed a lot of promising signs as a forward flanker who liked to come deep for the ball, found Josh Treacy with a bullet pass, helped massively by Treacy’s ability to once again generate two metres of space over Butts whenever he felt like it. Treacy scored his fourth, and while Adelaide still had the lead at this point, the game still felt over.
Ball up, Fremantle forward line. Mason Cox is dominating ruck position so much he may as well be wearing a latex mask underneath his goggles. He taps it to space which is rapidly filled by Shai Bolton, as alone as anyone I’ve ever seen while sharking a ruck tap. He’d shed Chayce Jones like snakeskin, and waltzed in to execute what would be the final lead change.
From here, competitiveness completely deserted the Adelaide Football Club. The final nine minutes saw no score and barely even a whimper from the men in yellow. Jordan Clark got reward for a very solid game by sneaking forward and getting a long-ranger from an intercept mark, while the Big Kahuna made a complete mockery of Adelaide’s inaccuracy issues by guiding one home in the cyclonic gusts from the arc for his fifth, the final major as the Dockers won 12.12 (84) to 9.14 (68).
And that’s a worry. Combined with Adelaide’s large-scale fadeout in the final fifteen minutes against Port Adelaide last week, I’ve got large question marks about their ability to run out games. Yes, they were one of the best sides last year when it came to closing it out, but don’t forget that their draw was very soft – two games against the Eagles, Roos and the Power sure pad that stat. The midfield also looks somewhat bare with no Soligo, exploited for its lack of pace and tenacity time and time again. The ruck problem, after appearing solved last week, presented itself in bold when faced with opponents of even remote competence, while the backline was serviceable save for the work done on Treacy. Pedlar and Edwards were the two main positives, but with plenty of experienced hands still yet to return, top four should still be the ambition come the season proper, although hosting an Elimination Final is the more realistic expectation.
Fremantle’s stock in my mind has risen significantly after seeing this performance, a win they absolutely deserved given the final balance of play. Mason Cox looks a natural fit and the traditional midfield three are working well with the new rotations passing through. Their defensive depth troubles me after their inability to shut down Fogarty in particular, and even Toby Murray at times, but their scoring ability will increase if Treacy and Amiss perform like they did on this occasion. The Dockers seem to be in a better position right now than the Crows, although all this does come with the caveat that over the last few years Adelaide’s play has not suited blustery conditions. Nonetheless, this side is very much capable of being a top four threat.
