FREMANTLE will re-write conventional wisdom around scoring if it wins the 2015 premiership.
No top-placed team has entered a final series having scored fewer points than Fremantle’s 2015 model since the number of home and away rounds was extended to 22 in 1970.
The Dockers have averaged 84.4 points a game (1857 points), ranking 12th on the 'points for’ table, in what represents a radical departure from the top placed teams in the past 10 seasons, who were all ranked top four for 'points for' ahead of the finals.
Only the 2005 Sydney Swans have scored fewer than 2000 points in the home and away season before winning the flag since 1970.
In that season the Swans scored 1974 points, finished third and lost in the first week of the finals before recovering to win the premiership.
Richmond and the Dockers are the only two finalists that did not score 2000 points in this year’s home and away season.
Only Port Adelaide in 1999 (1851 points) and Essendon in 2014 (1828 points) have scored fewer points in a season than Fremantle in 2015 and made the finals since 1970. Both finished seventh.
The Dockers however once again proved their defensive mettle in 2015, finishing second for points against, with all of the past 10 premiers finishing in the top six for points against.
The Dockers have not crushed teams, winning just 51 quarters for the season (ranked fourth in the AFL), the fewest of any of the top teams in the past 10 seasons, with only the 2006 Eagles winning fewer than 59 quarters on their way to finishing top.
Although Fremantle scored just 53 points on Saturday after resting half the team in the final round against Port Adelaide, its average points for were 12.2 points lower than the Sydney Swans in 2014, who recorded the lowest 'points for' measurement of top teams in the past 10 seasons.
But as Dockers coach Ross Lyon has pointed out in recent weeks, a new season begins in finals and the Dockers have the advantage of a home final, double chance, rested players and the potential of a home preliminary final.
With Lyon at the helm, anything is possible when the real stuff starts.
Despite averaging just 49.4 inside 50s (to be ranked 13th) the Dockers are third when it comes to inside 50 differential (impressive considering they conceded 38 more inside 50s than Port Adelaide in the final game) and sit second when it comes to the contested possession differential, a measure that means they will be hard to toss during finals particularly given their outside game is very good too.
They have also slammed on five goals or more in a quarter 16 times during 2015, their most recent been a seven-goal opening quarter against North Melbourne in round 21, the eighth time they have scored five goals or more in the opening quarter this season.
No finalist has had more scores in the first quarter of five goals or more than the Dockers, showing their capability when the heat is on.
This is unlikely to concern Lyon who has recognised what needs to improve for at least the past 10 weeks and has had the luxury of knowing the Dockers were likely to record enough wins to finish top two for most of that time.
Although scoring has dropped off in the back half of the season, the Dockers had lifted scoring in the back half of the season in the previous two years and it did not translate into the finals.
He is likely to regain Hayden Ballantyne, who can kick goals, while three proven finals performers, Matthew Pavlich, Michael Walters and Chris Mayne, have kicked more than 25 goals this season.
Fremantle’s qualifying final opponents, the Sydney Swans, entered the 2012 finals series ranked fifth on the points for table (average of 96.6 points per game) but kicked 91 points in the Grand Final to record a memorable victory over the Hawks.
Whether Fremantle can conjure something against the trend will be one of the more intriguing sub-plots in this finals series.
It has pole position, whereas Hawthorn, which has scored the most and conceded the least points, has to travel.
The moment of reckoning has arrived.
Stats supplied by Champion Data
