Friday Night Crow Down

Last week this column tipped Fremantle by 40 and the football gods handed us a four-point loss as punishment for our hubris. Tonight, in the sacred purple and green of 1995, we atone by devouring an entire flock of Crows and taking their minor premiership crown while we’re at it.

Fremantle 1st on the ladder, 18-3. Win tonight and the minor premiership is officially ours. Fell four points short in an MCG classic last week, a one legged moose might’ve gotten us over the line.

Adelaide, 5th at 14-7 and clawing for the double chance. Last year’s minor premiers, this year’s crown-forfeiters. Survived a scare from Richmond in the wet last week. One win from their past seven against us. Have never beaten Fremantle at Optus Stadium.

Right. Housekeeping first. Last week, this column declared the MCG trip a Grand Final dress rehearsal, scoffed at Justin Longmuir’s insistence that it was just another game, and confidently picked Fremantle by 40. Melbourne won by four, 113 to 109, in one of the games of the year, and JL, who told everyone to stay in the moment while we were busy measuring the trophy cabinet, has politely declined to say I told you so.

And what a night to atone. It’s Retro Round, and the boys are going all the way back to 1995, the purple and green anchor jumper with matching retro shorts, the strip we wore for our very first game as a football club. It’s also Member Thank You Round, the Club’s nod to a Purple Army that has turned up in record numbers all season, packed this stadium ten times without seeing a home defeat, and embraced Wharfie time like it’s 1995 all over again. If you own anything green and purple and vaguely regrettable, tonight is its night. Dress accordingly.

Now to the symbolism of the occasion, Adelaide were the minor premiers of 2025. Fremantle, with a win tonight, seal the minor premiership of 2026. The AFL, in its infinite scheduling wisdom, has arranged for the outgoing champions to personally deliver the crown to Optus Stadium. Lovely of them to make the trip. The Crows, of course, would rather be taking something home, they’re locked in a genuine scrap for the top four and can still overhaul Brisbane or Hawthorn, which means, mercifully, both sides have something real to play for and nobody can accuse this one of being a dead rubber.

The history, however, offers Adelaide very little comfort. One win from their past seven attempts against Fremantle. Zero wins, ever, at Optus Stadium, a stadium that opened in 2018, meaning the Crows have spent nearly a decade flying to Perth to lose in a variety of formats. And the freshest wound is the best one: Good Friday this year, Adelaide Oval, two-point thriller, and captain Alex Pearce, a lighthouse in human form, providing the last-minute smother to potentially save the day. The podcasts over east are still discussing it this week.

Team news, then. For us: two changes. Pearce resumes at full-back alongside Brennan Cox and Heath Chapman, with an unlucky Judd McVee making way, and the lively Chris Scerri comes in for Murphy Reid, who cops a week for a painful knock to the “groin region” and is on track to return for Round 24 once the swelling goes down. No drama, no panic, just the usual embarrassment of depth. Darcy stalking the sidelines for another week, when he does get back in he’s going to be wound so tight he could explode, possibly what JL is going for. For them: six changes, which tells its own story about a side still searching for its best 23 in mid-August. Darcy Fogarty returns from a three-match suspension, McAndrew and Soligo come back from being rested, Borlase and Nankervis return from injury and, poignantly, the retiring Taylor Walker made the trip west but has been managed out of the side. A 19-season great denied one last crack at us. We’d call it a shame, but he’s kicked quite enough goals against Fremantle for one lifetime, thank you, and we wish him a long and peaceful retirement starting immediately.

This Adelaide side is good. Properly good. Izak Rankine is in career-best form and playing like a man who missed out on September last year and intends to headline it. Jordan Dawson runs the midfield beautifully, Riley Thilthorpe and the returning Fogarty give them genuine aerial menace, and a team fighting for a double chance will not roll over. Add the uncomfortable fact that our defence just leaked 113 points its worst return of the season and there is a version of tonight where the Crows make this genuinely nervous. JL will have spent the week tightening screws.

Tonight is clear, dry and still, light easterlies dying off by evening, crisp single digits by the final siren. Dry ball, fast track, full house in retro colours. The exact environment in which this Fremantle side has been unbeatable all year: ten from ten at the Fortress. Players to watch – Brayshaw and Serong to get to work after quieter games last week. The Rankine v Bolton match up to see who can kick the most entertaining goal, Jackson makes a statement in the ruck. And at some point in the last quarter, 55,000 people in questionable green-and-purple merchandise will rise as one to salute the 2026 minor premiers.

THE VERDICT

The old minor premiers hand over the crown, Pearce haunts them one more time, and the Fortress finishes the home-and-away season exactly as it started: unbreached. Last week’s result was bitter. Tonight’s is delicious.

FREMANTLE BY 7