Fremantle Dockers' Winning Streak Broken by GWS Giants in Major AFL Upset

For the past three and a half months the Dockers have simply refused to lose. No matter the opponent or location, the Freo purple has reigned supreme.

That was until last Saturday's trip to the nation's capital. What looked on paper to be a mismatch between the injury-riddled Giants sitting in 14th on the ladder and the almost untouched and fully healthy Dockers in first.

Instead, one of the biggest boilovers of the season happened on a Saturday perfect for watching football.

For those 14 weeks there's been little doubt that Fremantle has been the best team in the league. With that mantle comes challenges of its own, including an oversized target on their back.

"I'd probably rather be where we are than any other team. It presents different challenges in terms of mindset and making sure you prepare well every week," Fremantle coach Justin Longmuir said after last week's loss.

"[It's] understanding that teams can change things up against you and throw different things at us.

"So it just presents a different challenge but yeah I'd rather be where we are [than anyone else]."

The enormity of the win, and what it means for his side, wasn't lost on GWS coach Adam Kingsley.

"This group's good enough. We proved it today. Just knocked off the best team [Fremantle]."

A win streak that long is a rare thing in football. Almost every club that has achieved the feat ends up threatening the premiership.

Sixteen of the last 22 times a team has had 10 wins or more they have made the grand final. Eleven of those sides have ended up standing atop the premiership dais when everything was said and done.

Every team to match Fremantle's 2026 streak of 14 wins has at least made it to the decider.

That bodes ominously for a club that has only made one Grand Final in its previous three decades in the league.

This week presents the most important challenge of the season to Longmuir's men. There are fewer sterner tests in footy than a 1 vs 2 showdown — even on your home deck.

"We've valued the right things largely this year and we've got a short turnaround to be able to get back on the horse," Longmuir added.

Fremantle has emerged as the year's biggest major bolter in the premiership race. To do so, it has had to forge its own way on the field.

Size matters

It's no secret that footy has grown over the past few decades, both on and off the field.

More people watch the game than ever before both live and on TV. And on the field it's easier to spot players in amongst the action, due to the rapidly increasing size of those on the park.

Fremantle stands on one extreme of the spectrum amid its run as the league's hottest side. No side deploys more tall players week in and week out than the Dockers.

When required, Fremantle has prioritised maintaining this sizeable structure, including bringing in equally tall reserve players like Mason Cox or Oscar McDonald when depth has been required. This preference for height illustrates that it's probably by design rather than accident.

The deployment of talls creates on-field effects beyond what is described on the stat sheet.

Beyond winning contested and uncontested marks, the value of halving a contest and blocking space can both provide an emergency outlet in transition or stop quick opposition movement in its tracks. Further upfield, quality mobile tall players help create mismatches and a focal point for crumbers.

The height demonstrated by Freo is spread across the ground, from its damaging ruck division to its miserly defence. But it's often the team's dynamic forward set-up with three hard-to-defend big forwards that gets the attention of opposition coaches.

"They're a fantastic forward line group particularly. Those key forwards are really, really hard to play on," Kingsley said in the wake of their win.

Simply put, Fremantle kicks more goals per inside 50 than any other side in the league this year. Josh Treacy, Patrick Voss and Jye Amiss are a three-headed forward line hydra that's incredibly hard to stop. Each plays their own role in their set-up.

Amiss often sits closer to goal, with his average possession location as deep as almost any other player in the competition. Treacy often gets used as a contested marking target in the forward half, a circuit breaker to spread opposition defences out even further.

And Patrick Voss is just electric: a bundle of athletic energy that can frustrate opposition sides and provide a spark to his own in equal measure.

To contrast against their big line-up, the Dockers will sometimes throw a smaller player as their deepest option — often their smallest in Isaiah Dudley. This throws off sides that like their most able and mobile tall defender as the deepest option, and can create more mismatches.

A trap that some sides with several tall forward options run into is a clogged forward line, with several of their targets leading into the same spots. Fremantle combats this by simply unloading at goal from downtown.

Fremantle takes a lot of shots from long range, scoring more from outside 30 metres than any other side, while sitting only 10th for shots and scores from within 30 metres. Voss, Treacy and Amiss have all converted long-range opportunities at above league-average accuracy, relative to expected shot difficulty.

But this isn't the only area where bigs are making a difference in Fremantle's minor premiership charge.

Solid as a rock

Big goals get the focus of the fans and the media, but often it's the work at the other end of the ground that wins premierships.

Cohesion and understanding between players can only be gained over time. In a modern defensive unit, single, game long player-vs-player assignments are rare due to their exploitability. Players must understand their game plan, including when and how they will hand off assignments and roles based on the situation.

Fremantle's key defensive pieces have largely played together for half a decade at this point: a settled core blooded together under a stable coaching regime.

That has led to some mighty impressive numbers for their back seven. Fremantle has allowed the fewest points from both stoppage and intercepts, as well as front half scoring.

It's the work in the intercept game that particularly stands out. The gap between Fremantle in first (37.6 points per game) and Port in second (44.8) is as big as the gap between Port and GWS in 10th (51.1).

The Dockers also allow the fewest goals per opposition inside 50 of any side. Fans should expect to see at least one, if not more, of the Docker defenders in All-Australian calculations at the end of the year.

That defensive core is enabled by an upfield game strongly focused on choking off supply to opposition midfielders.

A key component of Fremantle's defence is its adept set-up around the ball. This year it has been exceptionally good at denying possession, including getting the ball back straight after opponents first win it around the contest.

That extends to when the ball opens into general play. Fremantle excels at sending the first pressure player to ball carriers, and sits near the top for both tackles and intercepts per opposition disposal. This helps the Dockers win the time in possession battle, and force the opposition into increasingly risky decision making.

Against most teams this year this has been enough to win games, and is likely their best pathway to premiership glory.

How the Giants undid it all and how to bounce back

For all of the Dockers' strengths, it is clear that the right team with the right game plan can overcome them.

"I thought probably — maybe — our players took a little bit more responsibility throughout the week for their preparation and for ensuring that we stick to the plan," Kingsley said after the win.

"They're a pretty good team. This will be, you know, a little bump in their road, but they're still a very, very good team and will continue to be. The reality is the players play and they went out and executed a really good plan and did a great job."

The Giants clearly did their homework on how to shut down the Dockers. Connor Idun had a day out, switching between tall and small forwards, preventing the Dockers from benefiting from their usual mismatches.

At the contest, the Giants were able to turn a 20-hit-out loss to a 14-clearance win through solid strategic positioning.

"Credit to them. I thought their physicality was great and we weren't able to buffer it or match it," Longmuir said.

"When teams go in probably expecting to lose the hit-out, they can be a bit more defensive and a little bit more physical. And we probably felt like we didn't get the space we've had previously today."

Further upfield, the Giants trapped the Dockers in their own half with explosive pressure around the ball.

"It was really important for us to be able to play that front half game. I think against the Dockers, they're so potent ahead of the ball that to play that front half game [really] restricts their entries," Kingsley added.

That upfield work largely took their tall forward trio out of the equation.

Despite this, and a trip across the country and a short five-day break, the Dockers are poised to strike back this week.

"We're on top of the ladder. Trust me, we're not going to catastrophise one loss too much," Longmuir said in Canberra.

"We've already touched on and shown some clips around what let us down and where our mindset was today. We'll move on pretty quickly. As a coach you try and work on trends and not events … so definitely not going to overreact to one loss."

With one of the club's most important games ever ahead, that ability to bounce back will be critical to see.