Fierce finals furnace burns on slow-starting Dockers

Fremantle’s horror first-quarter efforts in recent finals will be well and truly in the spotlight when they take on Geelong in Friday night’s blockbuster semi-final showdown in Perth.

The Dockers won a club-record 19 games in the regular season on the way to the minor premiership, but are now staring down the barrel of a straight-sets September exit following last week’s shock 32-point loss to Hawthorn.

The Hawks kicked four goals to one in the opening term to get a crucial early edge, with the slow start continuing a worrying finals trend for the Dockers.

In the four finals played under Justin Longmuir, Fremantle have lost the opening quarters by a combined total of 99-19.

That included returns of 0.1 (1) in both the elimination-final win over the Western Bulldogs in 2022 and the semi-final loss to Collingwood a week later.

Against Gold Coast in last year’s elimination final, Fremantle managed 1.2 (8) in the opening quarter.

The Suns only managed one goal themselves, but broke the game open with a seven-goal second-quarter blitz on the way to a famous one-point win.

The slow starts across four finals have raised big questions about whether Fremantle can handle the big occasion.

Longmuir said it was imperative for his team to handle the pressure early against Geelong in order to buck the recent trend.

“A lot of it comes down to what you do off the contest,” Longmuir said.

“Finals are more contested. There’s more pressure, both perceived pressure and real pressure, and we just haven’t handled that as well as we could early in games.”

Fremantle have recalled former Demons defender Judd McVee to replace the injured Brandon Walker (ankle), while Nathan O’Driscoll was axed in favour of utility Corey Wagner.

Geelong go in unchanged from the team that beat Carlton by 33 points in last week’s elimination final, meaning key defender Sam De Koning misses again.

Cats veteran Patrick Dangerfield kicked five goals against the Blues and looms as a huge threat to Fremantle’s hopes of winning through to a preliminary final against Sydney at the SCG.

“Clearly we can’t allow him to have the sort of game he had last week,” Longmuir said.

“He’s a star of the competition. He’s been in these situations a lot, and we’ve got to make sure we limit the supply to their forward line, because he’s not the only dangerous forward down there.”

Fremantle’s star spearhead trio of Josh Treacy, Jye Amiss and Patrick Voss kicked just two goals between them last week, and the pressure is on them to bounce back against Geelong.