{"id":18765,"date":"2026-05-26T08:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T08:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/18765\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T08:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T08:10:08","slug":"fremantle-wary-of-wounded-brisbane-lions-as-dockers-take-on-two-time-reigning-premiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/18765\/","title":{"rendered":"Fremantle wary of wounded Brisbane Lions as Dockers take on two-time reigning premiers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beware the wounded Lions.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the message from Fremantle forward Josh Treacy as the Dockers take a 10-game winning streak to the Gabba to take on the two-time reigning premiers who are coming off an embarrassing drubbing.<\/p>\n

The Dockers sit on top of the AFL ladder, while the Lions have slipped to eighth off a 6-5 record.<\/p>\n

Brisbane\u2019s 78-point loss to GWS came after the Giants produced an AFL record 14.-goal third term.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way we approach every week is everyone\u2019s gettable, (but) you can\u2019t hide the fact that they\u2019ve won the last two grand finals,\u201d Treacy said after training on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone in this industry is quite quick to jump off the ship when a couple of things go wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly they\u2019re still a great outfit and we\u2019ll be preparing for their best on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a great feeling around the club at the moment. The way we\u2019ve embraced everything, it almost doesn\u2019t feel like we have won 10 in a row and what we\u2019ve achieved so far.<\/p>\n

\u201c(But) understanding that it doesn\u2019t give us any credits going into this week. A good chance to train again later in the week, and then get on the plane, go to Brisbane, and give them four quarters of our best footy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The key forward said their top of the table had not been a focus but it was a \u201cquite a unique situation\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we haven\u2019t been there since I\u2019ve been here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe positions we\u2019ve been getting put in during games, we lost those games the last few years, and I think that\u2019s something you can\u2019t train.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to be put in those positions to be able to learn, so I think that\u2019s what\u2019s held us in a really good spot this year in those games.<\/p>\n

\"FremantleCamera IconFremantle Dockers training at Cockburn ARC, Perth, on Tuesday. Pictured is Josh Treacy. Credit: Carwyn Monck\/The West Australian<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re conscious of it, but understanding what it is, and we know where we get our feedback from and what we take out of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are clearly really driven on what comes from inside these four walls, and the narrative is going to change every week externally, so you know, continuing to value what we do inside these four walls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Treacy is in career best form midway through his sixth season.<\/p>\n

He has more contested marks (26) than any other player in the competition and only Port Adelaide sharpshooter Mitch Georgiades has more grabs inside 50 (44 to Treacy\u2019s 38).<\/p>\n

He is up on most metrics, only falling behind in shot-at-goal accuracy, which currently sits at 52.1 per cent compared to 61.6 last season.<\/p>\n

He is averaging 7.2 marks per game this season, compared to 4.8 in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something I\u2019ve always chipped away at. I\u2019ve just got great confidence in that at the moment. Do a lot of work on it throughout the week and just playing with total freedom at the moment, which is allowed me to run and jump the ball,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"JyeCamera IconJye Amiss and Josh Treacy. Credit: Carwyn Monck\/The West Australian<\/p>\n

Brisbane trounced Fremantle by 57 points at Optus Stadium in round 23 in their only encounter last season<\/p>\n

The Lions played keepings off in that game, taking 147 uncontested marks and kicked 10 goals to two in the second half.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are a much better team than what we were at the back end of last year and in that position,\u201d Treacy said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll certainly be better prepared this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Defenders Harris Andrews and Ryan Lester were outstanding, although Treacy was among the Dockers\u2019 best.<\/p>\n

He expects to be matched up again on Andrews and says he will embrace the challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clearly gonna be a tough match up, great match up. They\u2019re the match-ups you want to play on to really test where your game\u2019s at,\u201d Treacy said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s done it so well for so long. I\u2019ll do what I need to do throughout the rest of the week to prepare myself.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beware the wounded Lions. That\u2019s the message from Fremantle forward Josh Treacy as the Dockers take a 10-game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[77,99,408,5099,261],"class_list":["post-18765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brisbane","tag-afl","tag-brisbane","tag-brisbane-lions","tag-fremantle-dockers","tag-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}