A Six-Pack Of IPA (Interesting Points, Allegedly): Fremantle Dockers boast AFL’s best record against top nine

Top nine, feeling fine It’s the stat that will hearten Dockers fans ahead of their testing lead-in to September and hopefully beyond: Fremantle now boast the league’s best record against fellow top-nine sides. Freo’s win over Hawthorn coupled with Collingwood’s loss to Gold Coast means that the Dockers surpass the ladder-leading Pies for the best clip against this year’s finals contenders, with Justin Longmuir’s side now 5-2 in such games. Collingwood are 5-3 against the top nine, an identical record to Brisbane, while at the other end of the scale, the Western Bulldogs are a damning 1-7. The Lions have the most remaining match-ups against top-nine sides with five of their six games coming home, whereas Geelong don’t face a single top-nine line-up between now and the finals. 2025 WIN/LOSS RECORDS FOR TOP-NINE TEAMS v TOP-NINE TEAMS GAMES REMAINING v TOP-NINE TEAMS Prince Harry Harry Edwards produced arguably a career-best game in West Coast’s defeat at the hands of Port Adelaide, and grabbed a slice of a club record in the process. Edwards’ nine intercept marks matched the tally for most-ever by an Eagle since the stat was first kept in 1999, equalling the efforts of Tom Barrass (2022 & 2024), Glen Jakovich (2000) and Andrew Donnelly (2000). According to Champion Data’s player ratings, Edwards is the sixth-highest ranked key defender in the AFL since round 12, behind Port’s Esava Ratugolea, Gold Coast’s Bodhi Uwland, GWS’ Sam Taylor, Collingwood’s Darcy Moore and St Kilda’s Callum Wilkie. Young talent time West Coast have 13 players with at least 100 games’ experience on their list this year, but fielded just four in the loss to Port: Jamie Cripps, Liam Duggan, Liam Baker and Tom Cole. It’s the smallest amount of 100-gamers to line up for the Eagles in a match since 2011, when Dean Cox, Darren Glass, Quinten Lynch and Adam Selwood led an inexperienced outfit to a western derby win. The players in Sunday’s Eagles team had an average games tally of 62.8, the fewest since the 62.1 from an early-season 116-point loss to Hawthorn in 2023. One is no fun Across the past decade, there’s been just four instances of a team mustering one win or fewer in their first 17 games of a season – and West Coast are now responsible for two of those instances. The 2025 Eagles join the 2023 Eagles in lurching to a 1-16 record, with a thought spared for Reuben Ginbey, who’s the only West Coast player to have featured in every match of those two stretches. The only other sides to start 1-16 in the past 10 seasons are 2018 Carlton – who finished the year with two victories – and 2016 Essendon, who ultimately snagged three wins despite having the bulk of their best line-up suspended for the entire campaign. Racking up the numbers Sam Switkowski and Andrew Brayshaw were Fremantle’s two best players in the win over Hawthorn, according to AFL Coaches Association Player of the Year voting, with both achieving numerical feats of note. Brayshaw’s 14 tackles were the most by a Docker in a game at Optus Stadium and the equal second-most by a Freo player ever, behind Corey Wagner’s 16 from the road loss to St Kilda earlier this year. Switkowski’s beautifully-executed rove and snap to kick-start his team early in the final term was Freo’s 1000th goal at the Burswood venue. Kick a Vic Fans of Victorian clubs, look away now. The Melbourne-based clubs as well as Geelong have now lost a combined 10 straight games when up against non-Victorian clubs across the past two-and-a-half weeks, including a 6-0 clean sweep in the round just completed. It’s a streak that is every chance to continue for at least the first couple of games of the upcoming round, with GWS hot favourites to beat Essendon on Thursday before Brisbane host the Bulldogs.