What might've been...

[Lach72]

So far this season, Fremantle have...

v Collingwood lost by 16
v Hawthorn lost by 15
v Adelaide lost by 17
v Geelong lost by 1
v Melbourne lost by 6
v Bulldogs lost by 3
v Carlton lost by 9
v St Kilda lost by 8
v Essendon lost by 4

That's 4 losses by a goal or less, 2 losses by just under 2 goals, and 3 losses by just under 3 goals.

9 games where they were in with a chance. Win 5 of them and they'd be on 9 wins and pushing for a spot in the finals. Especially given their run home - (West Coast, St Kilda and Collingwood at home, Sydney and Richmond away).

Vomit

 

[shibz_1989]

Yep. It sucks.

I can't remember where I read it, but I think the thing that stings most is to know we were one game away from out first grand final in 06...when you put it like that (not "we lost a prelim") it sucks majorly.

Oh well. Next year maybe...

 

[The Night Shift]

Lets hope we'll convert those narrow losses to wins from now on....
If we can do that then we have to be a chance of finals for 2009

 

[estibador]

It might be the Year of the Rat everywhere else, but in Freo it's the Year of the Heartbreaking Loss.

It really has been an incredibly frustrating season. So near, yet so far, so often.

 

[summerthebat]

I hope we take out all of our frustration on the eagles this weekend.

 

[freo1]

amazing to think, if we had won some of those games, we'd probably be in the 8, macca, blackie, carr etc would probably still be playing and the snorters would be the lone laughing stock

 

[Ripper]

It might be the Year of the Rat everywhere else, but in Freo it's the Year of the Heartbreaking Loss.

It really has been an incredibly frustrating season. So near, yet so far, so often.

Much the same as 2007 really where we lost a lot of close ones.

The big difference is that repeated close losses are scrutinised far closely than close wins.

That will make us stronger going forward.

 

[Clay Davis]

Who knows? Had we beaten Collingwood, would Rhys Palmer have been called up? Had the bottom not fallen out of our season so early, would guys like Head, Ibbotson and Mayne not be in the team now?

As much as it hurts, if we were pressing for the finals now, Matt Carr, Bell, Black would still all be in the team. We miss them, sure, but they probably wouldn't have been there next year, and it would have just forestalled the collapse until then.

What's promising is that we have good players returning next year (Hasleby and Headland), a good young kid or two in the draft, the improvement of the young blokes who played this year, and a fairly good spine to work with. This season could be worse. I see a lot of hope amongst the gloom. I felt worse at the end of last year, to be honest.

 

[EastcoastDocker]

If anything its been a great opportunity for a club to have a big clean out, play young kids, recruit a young gun...

if we were to have a season near the bottom of the ladder id prefer this then just getting belted every week

next year ppl will underestimate fremantle, rightly so, and then wappow!

 

[dominguez]

Vomit

The Cats game started the rot. We hang on and take the four points there and we probably take momentum into the Demons game a week later, building more momentum for the clashes with the blues and dogs who we led at 3/4 time.

The midfield was already our weakest zone going into the year but to lose Des and Hase then have Josh down on form was always going to lead t more losses than wins.

 

[dominguez]

Yep. It sucks.

I can't remember where I read it, but I think the thing that stings most is to know we were one game away from out first grand final in 06...when you put it like that (not "we lost a prelim") it sucks majorly.

Oh well. Next year maybe...

A quarter of the teams in the comp make a pre-lim each year though, so on average we should be making a pre-lim every 4th year.