How unheralded genius zagged to build AFL’s best list; what senior Eagles can learn from young gun’s tears — Will Schofield column

It’s time David Walls got his flowers. Because no AFL club has nailed its recruiting and retention strategy better than Fremantle in recent years.

The draft remains, for many, the cornerstone of list building. Fremantle’s foundation is as strong as any.

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Contrary to the modern footy landscape, the WA club has picked Victorians then backed its environment and development program to get the best out of them.

In fact, the Dockers’ core is overwhelmingly made up of interstate recruits: Caleb Serong, Hayden Young, Murphy Reid, Andy Brayshaw, Josh Treacy – who are all signed into the 2030s – as well as Alex Pearce, Luke Ryan and Sean Darcy. Serong, Young and Brayshaw are their starting midfield brigade.

It’s similar to the strategy adopted by the Lions, who in the mid-2010s began targeting Victorian country kids living away from home. The players were already used to living away from home, so the Lions just picked them to come to Brisbane and turned them into a team within a team in a state that can be hard to move to.

I think Freo probably blended its list a bit better than Brisbane. Not only do they have a big core of interstate players, they’ve also been opportunistic when elite West Australians have wanted to come home. Jordan Clark, Shai Bolton and Luke Jackson? There’s not many trios in the competition – all of which have either just been All-Australian or will be All-Australian this year.

FREO’S STANDARD-SETTERS

The two biggest draft bargains are Treacy and Reid, with Treacy the standout.

Every team in the country passed on Treacy in the 2020 draft before the Dockers selected him as a rookie. Fast-forward nearly six years and I reckon if you ran a poll across every club in the country, Treacy would be the starting full-forward or centre half-forward in nearly every team.

It’s an interesting turn of events. When Treacy arrived at Fremantle — and he’s spoken publicly about this — he wasn’t ‘unprofessional’, but his preparation wasn’t where it needed to be. He took ownership of that and transformed himself.

Treacy now doesn’t drink during the season — he hasn’t for about three years — and has gone from a player with potential to an elite one through his professionalism and preparation, which has translated into elite performance.

This transformation doesn’t just ‘happen’ overnight, either. For three or four years, people were asking: “Is Josh Treacy going to come on? Is he going to start holding these marks? Why are the Dockers still playing Josh Treacy?“

This is a good example of Fremantle’s elite culture, because Treacy sets the standard for the rest of the group. Every Docker now looks at him and goes: “He’s the number one forward in the competition.” He didn’t use to be. Instead, he used to like having a beer. Yes he did the right thing most of the time, but did he tick every box?

Now he does. Now he gets the results.

And if you’re leaving a stone unturned, you don’t fit in at Freo anymore.

Not only have the Dockers nailed their draft picks, they’ve also retained the players – despite never going deep into September prior to this season. That speaks to the club’s culture, which is set by the likes of Treacy and Alex Pearce.

Many people questioned Fremantle’s decision to appoint Pearce captain. Having seen him up close, I understand exactly why. His greatest strength is his authenticity. The era of the stereotypical authoritarian captain is gone. He connects with everyone, from senior players to the younger guys.

Pearce on the field doesn’t influence matches by getting it 30 times in the midfield. Rather, he impacts in moments. Just look at the games over the last couple of years where he has been the most influential Docker when the game is on the line.

The Tasmanian stands up regularly – and that means all players follow his lead. It’s like: “Well, if Alex Pearce is here and he enjoys Western Australia and being away from home, why can’t we be the same?”

BOLD CALLS THAT PAID OFF

While the Dockers are rightly lauded for those they’ve brought to the club, the players they’ve let go have been correct calls, too. And honestly, I don’t think they were that disappointed to lose too many.

They traded Adam Cerra – a No.5 pick from 2017 – to Carlton. But that deal helped them get Jye Amiss at the draft, while a future pick they got back from the Blues then formed part of the Clark trade with Geelong. At the moment, I don’t think Cerra gets a game in this Dockers team – all after that two-for-one deal.

I don’t think the Dockers were that disappointed to lose Blake Acres to the Blues, even though he was a solid role player for them. And credit to Jesse Hogan, who’s turned himself into a great footballer at the Giants, but that’s another example of a player they were happy to let go.

The Dockers really haven’t got much wrong at list management. That enables this group to grow together. Add in the culture and professionalism elements, the wins naturally come.

And winning consistently means people want to stay at your club.

The world is in front of the Dockers.

DRAMATIC HARLEY SCRIPT FLIP

Last week, I wrote Harley Reid was clearly the most inconsistently umpired player in the competition. My main frustration was with the run-of-the-mill free kicks involving Reid – both for and against – such as when he’s at stoppage and the ball in his hands.

By half-time of the Tigers-Eagles game on Sunday, Reid had been awarded six free kicks.

I couldn’t help but laugh.

If you’ve watched enough footy, an adjustment like that is not a coincidence at all. But I don’t think any of those six free kicks were incorrect, either.

Ultimately, if you’ve got a player that’s aggressively in and under and trying to shrug or break tackles and gets caught high, it’s a high free kick. That’s what the majority of the Reid frees were on Sunday – and they were all there.

You’d like to think the trend continues.

AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon last week said his advice for Reid to fix his for-against free kick imbalance was to “stop giving away free kicks”. Dillon’s comments missed the mark with what the real Reid issue was: It’s not the free kicks he gives away, it’s the ones he doesn’t get.

The Eagles speak to the AFL, discussions are had with the umpiring department, and suddenly Reid has six free kicks before half-time. I had a good chuckle.

People talk about Reid’s maturity and that he’s playing for free kicks, but I don’t think he did that at all during the day.

WHERE’S THE CARE?

Reid on Sunday was easily the best player on the ground. But in a losing cause.

Lots of people have talked about the opportunity the Eagles fumbled against the Tigers.

But I don’t really see it that way. Because like Richmond, West Coast is no good.

The Eagles haven’t had a good season. They’ve improved, yes, but they’ve still won just four games. They’re not a good side yet.

This was a game between two really poor sides littered with poor skill execution. But I was particularly disappointed with the output from some of West Coast’s senior players.

Basic skill execution doesn’t boil down to the amount of coaching you’ve had. While the amount of work you do during the week definitely dictates it, executing skill on game day is more mental application. It’s care in the moment. If you need to hit a handball under no pressure on the MCG wing, you must have the mental fortitude to go: “This is an important thing to do.”

Not enough West Coast players show enough composure and attention to detail in the moment to execute basic skill fundamentals. That doesn’t mean they don’t care about the club or about winning. But at a forward-50 stoppage when Elliot Yeo is on Sam Lalor, don’t get pushed goal-side by Lalor and let him out the front for a goal. You also don’t miss easy set-shots – like Jake Waterman is doing regularly – if you have enough care in the moment.

These players — Yeo, Waterman and other senior players — have executed skills forever. Yeo’s a two-time best and fairest winner and Waterman is an All-Australian forward who’s, normally, a great set-shot at goal. But right now, they’re not – and that comes down to care.

That’s all on the players, not coach Andrew McQualter. There’s lots of heat here in the west, but it’s not McQualter’s responsibility to hit skills on game day.

AND A WORD ON WILLEM …

After the game, Fox Footy cameras captured a moment where Reid was consoling a highly emotional Willem Duursma, who was in tears.

I asked a few at the Eagles about this and a couple of people said Willem is an emotional guy.

I like it because Duursma hates losing.

It also shows footy is an emotional game, especially for young kids with a lot of pressure on them. The will to win, the intensity of the contest, the constant scrutiny – it can be a lot.

AFL players cry. It happens probably more than you’d think and I guarantee you every club would have different moments like this during the year. This moment just happened to be captured on camera.

But, overall, it reflected the care Duursma has. Late in the game on Sunday, he gave a high free kick away after dropping a chest mark on an inside ball. I reckon he’d want that moment back.

There are so many moments in footy, positive and negative. You can move past the negative ones quickly and you don’t remember many of them at the end of your career. But at the time, you do dwell on them. And you want players to care.

My issue has been with the lack of care in the moment from several West Coast players this year. It becomes difficult when you’re losing, but great players and teams overcome that.

I expect the Eagles to continue improving, but they’ll need to find a way to execute in big moments – the way Pearce and his Dockers have.