In a league where perception drives narrative, perhaps it’s time we started acknowledging Fremantle’s offensive upside in their September bid.

The Dockers are largely known as a defensive, dour team, or that’s how the eastern side of the country typically views them.

The direct correlation in association with that view, is a hapless team offensively, one that cannot be competitive in its current makeup.

Those who love surface-level numbers have their safe numbers to go by – the Dockers concede 69.2 points per game, the second-fewest in the league, while in attack, they average 76.5 points, ranked 13th.

These numbers only tell us the end result, which is a fraction of the entire story. Our league is about tactical battles, the shifts in structures and plans within games to offer the best advantage.

Look no further back than a week ago and it was clear that Collingwood had to make clear defensive adjustments to withstand a powerfully incisive Fremantle attacking flow, rather than the other way around.

In a vacuum, obviously, the Dockers are more established defensively than offensively, but there are some clear things they do better in attack, than out the back.

When they can attack as they want, Fremantle’s ball movement is arguably quicker than any other team in the league.

Their use of handballs as not only the primary way to navigate through congestion, but as the way to feed the ball into space to the blistering outside pace they possess has been in development over the past couple of seasons and is particularly damaging in 2024.

Fremantle’s averaging the most handballs in the league halfway through the season and has the lowest kick-to-handball ratio, but it’s not without purpose.

There’s a reason Jordan Clark is in All-Australian form and it’s not just the defensive aspect of his game, nor is it the enhanced counting statistics that him and Luke Ryan, also superb, are beneficiaries of in the possession game.

Caleb Serong is enjoying another career-best season, as is Hayden Young. While they’ve continued to become excellent inside midfielders and influential in multiple ways, their use by hand in particular has helped transform the team.

Young was a half-back flanker for a few years, but now, his metres gained by hand alone, feeding to the likes of Clark who is faster than almost anyone in the league and has a directness by foot that catches the opposition off guard, that’s the style the Dockers want to play.

Sam Switkowski is not a small forward as he is often billed, broadly by label makers.

Absolutely, his calling card is tackling (six per game) and pressure and being around stoppages for that reason. But equally, he’s the guy that pushes high up the ground to either help with the handballing style, or is the recipient of the ball in space on the half-forward flank.

Jaeger O’Meara deserves some credit for his finding form in the last month across half-forward and is a similar beneficiary to the style of play. He’s not the goal threat that Lachie Schultz was or Michael Frederick can be, but he’s playing the role those two players typically rotated between, around 60 metres from goal on the outside.

Josh Treacy (21 goals) has been excellent this season, Jye Amiss’ inaccuracy (14 goals, 15 behinds) has probably capped the positivity around his game, but both are clearly sustainable key forward targets.

Bailey Banfield too, has continued his career renaissance in a great way.

The Luke Jackson/Sean Darcy debate lives on, perhaps more on-ball time for Jackson with Darcy rucking. A plausible shift in that manner could even further shift the dynamic in quick ball movement from stoppages, as we know Jackson loves to lope along from stoppages towards goal, or use his hands in tight.

Overall, it makes Fremantle a threat. Now, is it the finished product? Far from it.

They could barely score for two quarters against the Magpies as the opposition made intelligent shifts to stop the quick ball movement, before firing in four goals in quick time towards the end of the game.

Currently, the Dockers are ninth with six wins and a draw from 11 games. Of those games, only four have been against teams currently in the top eight. They’ve lost three times and had a draw.

The loss to Sydney was by a large margin but the circumstances and what we’ve seen from the Dockers is enough to call it an aberration. They could’ve plausibly won the other games.

Only the Derby can really be pointed out as a bad result for Fremantle this season but even then, too much negative focus was put on the Dockers and not enough credit was given to the clearly improved West Coast team.

That night, the Eagles were simply the better, more efficient and ruthless team. In fact, you could probably go as far as to say that the way West Coast defended Fremantle and restricted their ball movement was the best defensive effort of the season and a style that more teams should aim to play for against the Dockers.

It leaves Justin Longmuir in a position where credit is warranted, but seldom given.

He was given a very short-term contract extension on the eve of the season. It was one that removed the constant badgering in weekly press conferences, but one that still has left a cloud over his head, with the flexibility for the board to make a change if they’re not impressed.

They really should be though, as the way the Dockers are functioning is flying under the radar in terms of how dangerous they can be.

Jeremy Sharp deserves a mention, not only for beginning to realise his own potential but for having the transformative impact on the wing that really, the Dockers have been lacking since the elite glimpses Blake Acres showed; the ones that currently have him as the best wingman in the competition.

Sharp’s fitness base has him being one of the team’s most influential final quarter players in 2024 and it’s a pleasure to watch.

Alex Pearce has been maligned but his on-field play has been great this season and his leadership, navigating through aspects of sport and life in general for a large group of players, has been exemplary.

The team is ranked lowly for intercepts (16th) but reads the play extremely well. The aforementioned trio of defenders are good aerially, the inclusion of Heath Chapman after injury has been wonderful and James Aish has been excellent in both his aerial ability and courage.

Brandon Walker, also maligned, has been superb and continued to grow into the lockdown role.

They need to work better at defending at ground level, it felt like the Magpies in particular were able to score easily out of congestion inside attacking 50, but it’s a chink in a suit of armour that’s otherwise impervious to most things.

The swing factor though, is that sustained pressure across the three lines of the field, and that swift ball movement that catches the opposition off-guard.

There have been moments in every single game this season where Fremantle has been almost unstoppable in attack. It’s what made the Brisbane and Bulldogs victories impressive and relatively comfortable.

It’s what put the Blues, Power and even Swans at times, on the back foot, and it’s what really changed things around against the Magpies, more than a singular umpiring decision.

Longmuir deserves credit for the tactical development of his style and the way the playing group has embraced it.

Now, it’s on him, his coaching staff and the players, to figure out how to ensure they have multiple avenues to access this damaging offensive style, or at least sustain it for longer periods.

It’s been a massive tick on the season for Fremantle, yet it has barely registered a peep across the league.

Over the next month of games, bye excluded, the Dockers play Melbourne, the Bulldogs, Gold Coast and Sydney, mostly on the road, although they travel decently.

All have had good defensive showings for the majority of the season, but whether they can withstand Fremantle’s quick, slick movement will be another challenge.

Not many experts thought the Dockers would be a contender to play in September, but not many acknowledged the style of play developing.

Justin Longmuir and his Dockers are playing extremely watchable, dangerous football that can beat any team, and it’s time we acknowledge this on the road to September.