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Fremantle will be out to keep its top-four hopes alive on Saturday night with a big win over the West Coast Eagles, who’ll have their first official experience of life after Josh Kennedy.
The Dockers (13-6-1, 115.3%), who returned to form last weekend with a terrific win over the Western Bulldogs, must keep winning to give themselves an opportunity to earn a qualifying final spot.
The Eagles (2-18, 61.1%), who hold a 32-22 derby record over Fremantle, will have a forward line that doesn’t include club great Kennedy, who played his last game against Adelaide and booted eight goals.
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The medi subs are Greg Clark for West Coast and Bailey Banfield for the Dockers.
This match gets underway at 7:40pm AEST from Optus Stadium.
Watch it live on Fox Footy (channel 503) from 7:30pm AEST.
Follow Fremantle vs West Coast Eagles in our live blog below!
QUARTER BY QUARTER MATCH REPORT
It took Fremantle more than six minutes to get David Mundy out into the action after heartwarming scenes as the retiring great ran out with his family pre-game.
In that time, the Eagles got on the board early after a big contest from Jack Darling.
While the star Eagle couldn’t pull down the grab behind Dockers defender Alex Pearce, he still competed on the ground and dished the hands out to Zac Langdon who snapped the first of the night.
Michael Frederick had the chance for the immediate reply, and then had another minutes later as the Dockers locked the ball inside their forward half.
But Frederick couldn’t convert either opportunity.
It took a simple error from Eagle Jamaine Jones to gift Fremantle their first as Caleb Serong pounced on the mistake.
After Shannon Hurn missed Josh Rotham in the corridor, Rotham regathered and dished the footy out to Jones. But he was immediately stripped of possession and Serong set sail from 70m out as the ball skidded through in the wet.
“The execution is marvellous, but it is gifted to the Dockers,” commentator Dermott Brereton said.
“Ball security is everything. That’s not under pressure, in elite football that’s really poor ball security.”
“It’s a forced error, a really good forward pressure from Darcy Tucker (to strip the ball),” Matthew Pavlich added.
But as Hugh Dixon lined up for his first goal of the night, a fight broke out as players came from everywhere.
Caleb Serong and Jack Redden were in the thick of it as Dixon slotted the goal and then joined the fracas with the rest of the players.
Three separate wrestles broke out as tempers spilled over.
By the time the players were separated, Serong’s jumper was ripped open and in bizarre timing, the crowd was standing applauding at the 16-minute mark for Mundy’s retirement.
“You saw it coming Pav and they’re all racing in to join into the scuffle. No love lost. West Coast, the underdogs, have come with a fighting mentality and it is right on here,” commentator Adam Papalia said.
“The umpires are trying to control this so they can restart the game but they can’t,” Brereton added.
“Both teams still wrestling each other, there is a fair bit happening,” Papalia said.
Pavlich said Serong was simply “flying the flag” in the scuffle.
“Andy Brayshaw was getting harrassed by Jackson Nelson when he was coming off and he didn‘t like it so he went back at him and it just exploded. Caleb Serong came in flying the flag,” he said.
“A bit of spice in Derby 55,” Papalia added.
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