Fremantle held on in a classic over the Easter long weekend at Adelaide Oval, overcoming a 48,000 strong crowd cheering on the Crows’ comeback.
The match was on Freo’s terms for the better part of the first three quarters, extending their lead out to 34 points at one stage in the third.
Six unanswered goals from Adelaide brought them back into the match, trailing by just four points going into the last quarter.
James Peatling led the Crows’ third quarter surge, racking up 11 disposals and two tackles as well as hitting the scoreboard with a major.
It was Tex Walker who took the lead for Adelaide in the fourth quarter, with skipper Jordan Dawson kicking another to erupt Adelaide Oval with just over 10 minutes remaining.
Shai Bolton was quick to silence the Crows fans, kicking one off a handpass from Dudley and keeping the pressure on.
It was Josh Treacy who had the last laugh, slotting an epic dribbler from the pocket, beating the goalkeeper and almost clipping the post on the way in.
77-74 with six minutes remaining, Adelaide missed two opportunities to kick another goal, with a superhero save from captain Alex Pearce diving to smother a final shot from Peatling putting the match to bed.
The Dockers will play at Adelaide Oval again this weekend for Gather Round, facing Collingwood at prime time on Friday night.
Freo utility Corey Wagner could get the job on Daicos after Collingwood confirmed he and Scott Pendlebury will return to the side.
Wagner kept the Brownlow frontrunner to a season-low 18 disposals and a goal the last time the two sides met, and he joined Sports Breakfast this morning.
“I don’t think we’d probably be changing too much but if he [Daicos] gets off the leash, absolutely I’d love to give him another shot,” he said.
“He’s just really smart. He changes direction to get five meters ahead of you in a second. It’s really impressive and it’s unlike anyone.
“The way Nick can just time his runs right – and he runs so hard to try and get the ball – if you’re not stopping him and putting body onto him, you’re no chance of catching him.”
With three on the trot for Fremantle, the team is working hard to block out expectations built up by the media and continuing to work on their craft.
“We’ve said at the start of the year we didn’t want to get too ahead of ourselves if we’re going alright and we didn’t want to be too down in the dumps when we didn’t get things right.”
“I think how we handled the Geelong loss, we pretty much handled it the exact same as when we win. We take the review, we reflect, we see what we got wrong and then we just start the week again and it’s sort of a process driven thing.”
The last three times the Dockers met the Pies, they’ve managed to win, lose and draw, with Friday night’s blockbuster clash potentially giving us a glimpse of what we could see come September.
Collingwood boasts a poor history on the road with Fremantle red hot favourites going into the weekend, hoping to extend their streak to four wins.
IMAGE: AFL Photos