Rohan Connolly: can Fremantle and the Swans bust AFL’s finals myth | The Canberra Times

The AFL season is halfway through, the bye tours have begun and so have the reviews of the action so far.

There’s such a premium these days on “talking points” and isolated events from individual games that sometimes it seems like the big picture gets a little lost. But take a quick look at the AFL rankings right now and one thing is clear. Change is at the door.

A lot could still unfold over the next few months, but we currently have two teams on a “mini-break” for the remainder of the competition, one of which never reached a final last year and the other who was eliminated in the first week of September.

Fremantle and Sydney have clearly been the success stories of 2026 so far; The Dockers are now third with 11 wins in a row, with the Swans 10-2 and a half ahead of Hawthorn, while Fremantle have a three-game buffer over fourth-placed Geelong.

Can the Dockers and Swans maintain their momentum? One thing is certain: varying degrees of skepticism will remain on both until the premiership is decided.

From where? In Fremantle’s case, the Lions are to avoid the current slump, due in part to their lack of previous finals experience relative to other potential finalists such as the Swans, Geelong, Hawthorn or Brisbane.

The average of the “finals” on the Dockers’ roster is just two. The equivalent figure for the Cats and Lions is eight, Sydney’s is five and Hawthorn’s is four.

This is an important difference, and perhaps valid enough reasoning. Doubts in Sydney linger longer, but primarily over the Swans’ previous grand final failures; Since their last flag in 2012 the club has suffered four consecutive defeats on the big day under previous manager John Longmire, and indeed was outright defeated in three of those four grand final defeats.

So how much does this have to do with this year? There are only five players on the entire Sydney roster who played in either of the first two of those defeats in 2014 and 2016. The Swans of 2022 were still a very raw combination, bringing an incredible amount of experience to favorites Geelong.

But the bigger question is whether these traditional concerns are as important as they once were. And no matter how experienced the likes of Fremantle and Sydney are in 2026, or how scarred they may be from previous battles, how much more reason for hope might that offer?

Look at how both Richmond in 2017 and Melbourne in 2021 have surged towards drought-breaking flags throughout their entire finals campaigns, despite a lack of previous finals experience.

Even the best teams in today’s AFL are not as dominant and reliable as they once were. Increasingly, winning an AFL championship is about getting your timing right, with even the best from each year prone to sluggishness. Perhaps part of the reason is that it’s too early to write off the struggling Lions.

The Brisbane combination that beat Sydney at a crucial moment in 2024 won just 14.5 of 23 games and finished fifth after home and away rounds, having to win three of four away finals, one of which came 44 points adrift late in the third term. Last year the Lions won just 16.5 games and lost their first final before kicking into gear.

This is a far cry from the dominance of Hawthorn in 2013, for example, which was the only time Fremantle reached the grand final.

That year, Alastair Clarkson’s team achieved 19 wins from 22 matches, the Hawks’ first ‘three-peat’ title. Geelong had 19 wins in 2011 and beat a Collingwood team that also had 20 wins on grand final day. Winning numbers of at least 17-18 were the norm until a decade ago, not the exception.

It’s having an idea of ​​what a team’s ceiling is, which is as important as anything, assuming they get to the top come September.

And while Fremantle and Sydney made short work of Brisbane, the Dockers beat Hawthorn and led Geelong by six goals before losing narrowly, the Swans beat five teams in the top 10 and both losses were by under five goals.

Of course, incorporating the “I just have to get it right for a while” ethos is effectively the arrival of a top 10 finish this year with wild card finals. If Brisbane were to settle for tenth place having won less than half their games but had their players available and fit again in September, who’s to say the Lions couldn’t have done so even after that?

If you ask me, the bar for qualifying for the finals is very low. However, there is also relief for teams like Fremantle and Sydney, even if their current stellar form does not hold up and they may experience wobbles later in the season.

There is a lot to play for in the second half of 2026. But I really wonder if the “September season” is the same as it used to be. Experience still matters. But in a competition where parity, player availability and timing are increasingly defined, this may never be less important.