Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir has overseen an unconvincing start to the 2025 season. Photo: AFL MEDIA
Season 2025 might only be six rounds old, but there are already some very big question marks surrounding Fremantle’s mental toughness and, by extension, its top-eight legitimacy.
Heading into this year, the Dockers were widely tipped to be a finalist and perhaps even challenge for a top-four spot.
After all, they brought in prized recruit Shai Bolton from Richmond as well as highly-regarded draft pick Murphy Reid with selection 17 last November.
And when one considers that Fremantle has a midfield consisting of Andrew Brayshaw, Caleb Serong, Luke Jackson/Sean Darcy and Hayden Young, a forward line that features Bolton, Josh Treacy and Jye Amiss and a backline that boasts Luke Ryan, Jordan Clark, Alex Pearce and Brennan Cox, it appears, on paper at least, that the building blocks of a successful side are in place.
The fact that Freo were third on the ladder with four rounds to go last year also helped fuel the optimism surrounding their prospects for the 2025 campaign.
But amidst the widespread high hopes that were attached to the Dockers, what got lost was the catastrophic manner in which they failed to make the finals last year after being in such a strong position.
Just one more win would’ve done it for them, yet they suffered an unforgivable one-point loss to also-ran Essendon, after leading by 25 points in the final quarter, then dropped a home match to Geelong. And after losing to GWS at Giants Stadium, they lost the very last home-and-away game of the year, again at home, to Port Adelaide with a finals berth still on the line.
Put simply, the Dockers lacked the requisite mental fortitude and uncompromising attitude needed to play AFL football to secure themselves a top-eight spot.
And unfortunately for Fremantle, those unwanted attributes are evident yet again early on in the new campaign after spending all summer presumably attempting to remedy them.
For the second time in five games, a winless team that was under the pump managed to get off the mark against Fremantle.
Firstly it was Sydney, who fought back from 23 points down in Round 2 at Optus Stadium to pinch a thrilling four-point win, and then on Saturday, even more alarmingly, it was the previously rudderless Demons who had their way with Fremantle.
Heading into the match at the MCG, Melbourne was nothing short of a hot mess. The Demons had made their worst start to a season since 2012 (0-5), and only West Coast had a worse offence than them.
Melbourne was averaging a putrid 61 points per match and ranked 17th for clearances, 16th for disposals, marks, tackles and marks inside 50, 15th for contested possessions and 14th for inside 50s.
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There was not one redeeming feature about the Demons and they appeared to be in freefall.
Yet against Fremantle, Melbourne equalled its best score of the year by half-time and went onto crack triple figures for the first time on the way to a 10-point win.
Gone were the disorganised, disinterested and apathetic Demons of the first five weeks. Simon Goodwin’s men mauled the Dockers in contested possessions 134-116, centre clearances 20-11 and tackles 59-46, especially tackles inside 50 (27-4), won the overall clearance count 38-33 and had more inside 50s as well (56-49).
Of course, Melbourne deserves plenty of credit for that performance, especially with the numerous positional and personnel changes they made, but after winning their previous three games, the Dockers were warm favourites to extend the Demons’ winless start to the year to six matches.
As so often happens with Fremantle, the soft underbelly that lurks beneath the surface rears its head when you least expect it, like it did when it got smashed by Geelong in Round 1, and it produces a bitterly disappointing performance out of the blue.
After the game, Dockers coach Justin Longmuir said as much, labelling his team’s performance as not up to standard and questioning their grit.
“I didn’t think we were tough enough. We didn’t value the right things and didn’t defend our front half the way we wanted to,” he said.
“We didn’t put enough pressure on them after they won the ball.
“They were able to just bounce out of our forward 50 way too easily.
“We could have defended a lot better than we did today.”
Longmuir is now in his sixth season as Dockers coach, and they’ve only made one finals appearance in that time. If Fremantle is still producing these kinds of lacklustre efforts under his watch, then the question has to be asked now if Longmuir is the right man for the job in the long term.
While plenty of pressure and scrutiny has already been applied to his counterparts Michael Voss (Carlton), Goodwin and Alastair Clarkson (North Melbourne) this year, Longmuir should rightly feel some of that heat now as well.
Is Longmuir’s message getting through to his squad?
With Round 6 almost completed, on average differentials, the Dockers are ranked 15th for tackles, after ranking 10th last year, and are struggling to win the ball as they’re 12th for disposals and 17th for marks.
Longmuir seems like a lovely guy, but whether he has it within him to inspire his talented playing group and elevate them to the level that many pundits believe they should be at remains to be seen.
