At 0-5, down a Brownlow medalist and facing the very real prospect of a further three consecutive losses, things couldn’t have got much worse for Ross Lyon this week. Then he answered a phone call from Cale Hooker, during which Essendon’s star defender informed the Dockers coach that he wouldn’t be making the trip across the Nullabor to link up in 2017.
He’s clearly a polite man bloke, Hooker, but in every other sense this is all just a bit awkward for Fremantle. Minor premiers last season, they’re now staring at a vast canyon and apparently unable to attract the kind of recruits they desperately need.
Decisions like Hooker’s are clearly complicated ones and take in a range of personal considerations, but as the Dockers enter the early stages of what could prove an ugly spiral, it is morbidly fascinating to wonder what might become of them in the next few years if a brush-off from even a Fremantle local like Hooker becomes the template. Twenty years on this has the faint echo of the club’s formative years, when Gerard Neesham’s wining and dining of big-name recruiting targets achieved nothing more than pushing up their contract values at their existing clubs.
Earlier in the week Inside 50 posited the theory that for all his pragmatic butchery of football’s aesthetic, there is still something endearing and even likeable about an oddball like Ross Lyon, but then a few unfortunate souls who’ve been on the end of his press conference barbs vehemently disagreed, pointing out that the coach is unnecessarily difficult to deal with and often just downright spiteful and rude. Though of no consequence to the average fan like us, you’d suppose that this is indeed a concern if you’re part of the 0.00001% of the population who personally interact with this fascinating, flawed man on a regular basis.
And that’s the thing. Among that 0.00001% sit AFL footballers like Hooker and before him, Mitch Clark. If playing under Lyon is the carrot, nobody seems to be chasing it. To avoid freefall Fremantle really needs to start progressing beyond first base. No wise judge would question Lyon’s coaching acumen, but to what extent should Fremantle supporters be concerned about his ability to attract and nurture the talent the club now needs to rise again?
Such concerns are not unreasonable when you consider the players Lyon has brought in since he packed up his stats sheet and Zac Dawson and headed to the Dockers before the 2011 draft. Aside from that first crop of kids – draft bargains Tom Sheridan, Hayden Crozier, Cameron Sutcliffe and Lachie Neale – the most measurably successful acquisition in Lyon’s time has been Danyle Pearce, and Port Adelaide certainly didn’t stand in his way when he wanted to go. Ditto the Suns and wayward midfield star Harley Bennell, who really had no choice in his exact destination and is yet to play senior football in 2016.
Low-cost, zero reward trade and free agency deals have netted non-events Colin Sylvia and Scott Gumbleton, but really the Dockers have been best served by low-profile rookie elevations like Clancee Pearce, Lee Spurr and Matt Taberner and the incredible recruiting work done late in the 2011 draft. To this, it’s worth adding that Lyon’s bad reputation for player development is probably a tad unfair. But the question remains as to how exactly the Dockers will avoid the iceberg ahead without luring some decent free agents and trade targets.
Troubling too is how this side looks in the short-term. With games against Adelaide (away), GWS (home), Hawthorn (away), Richmond (home, where the Tigers beat them last season), and St Kilda (away), it’s actually not preposterous to see them at zip and 10. In the lead-up to the 2016 season, Inside 50 had to be talked out of positioning the Dockers in the 10-12 ladder range, eventually wimping out and putting them between seventh and ninth. Our sense was that the attritional nature of Docker life would eventually weigh on this group of players and what we’ve seen so far this year is not just an ageing side, but one that looks worn down and frazzled by life under Lyon.
Having suffocated so many opposition sides between 2013 and the latter half of 2015, you wonder whether Fremantle’s players are now just a little short of breath themselves. The Age’s Rohan Connolly put forward a similar theory a few weeks back – before the rot really set in – suggesting that like Lyon’s St Kilda’s side of 2011, the Dockers were battling an “emotional toll” as much as a physical one, like short-circuiting Kraftwerk robots no longer able to keep up with their own backing tape. In the meantime it makes them oddly fascinating, but it’s what lies further ahead that is of more grave concern.
Quote of the week
And the trend’s your friend. Don’t catch falling knives. So the same issue really. Not so much in the defensive 50. But our ability to transition the ball in a productive way out of centre back is our annus horribilis. We need to work on that. Lots of turnovers.
Yep, it’s a typically gnomic Lyon sounding like he needed a hug after his side’s disastrous round five loss to Carlton. Lyon’s entire post-match press conference is actually worth 11 minutes of your time, to be honest (and if not, bear in mind that in the quote above, “annus” was pronounced with only one ‘n’. The Dockers really have bottomed out).
Photograph of the week
So much of what we see in professional sport now borders on contrivance, but there was something far more genuine about the way Collingwood players enveloped Mason Cox after the American debutant kicked the opening goal of the Anzac Day blockbuster. But pity Josh Smith, the Pies’ other first-gamer on the day; 23 polished disposals, four tackles and a goal and he barely rated a mention during or after the game.
Bits and bobs
Last week Inside 50 talked up the boundless excitement provided by footy in 2016 only to be confronted with a round filled with one-sided stinkers, so we’ll lay off the grand statements this time around. That said, tonight’s first v second clash between North Melbourne and the Bulldogs promises pure football joy, even if the two sides don’t often figure in close ones. The Bulldogs, who’ve also been royally screwed for MCG games in the past four years, will be playing on Friday night for the first time in four years. Ludicrous.
St Kilda have made a hobby of beating Melbourne at Etihad stadium in the last few years but it’ll be a tougher task this time, the Giants head into a home game against the Hawks full of confidence and Richmond’s MCG encounter with Port Adelaide will be a white knuckle affair for both sets of fans. Lose and the Tigers can virtually kiss their finals chances goodbye, even granting their penchant for late-season surges.
The more absorbing encounter on Saturday night should be Geelong and Gold Coast at Geelong, whose fans will be parading around their new flame Patrick Dangerfield and showing that they’re well and truly over their ex, Suns skipper Gary Ablett. Sunday is a little less enticing; Sydney should easily account for the Lions, Essendon-Carlton is development league fare and only a newly-confident Collingwood hold genuine hopes of an upset when they travel west to play the Eagles.
