{"id":40069,"date":"2026-06-28T12:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T12:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/40069\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T12:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T12:20:10","slug":"suns-humbled-as-dockers-snare-sweet-revenge-in-perth-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/40069\/","title":{"rendered":"Suns humbled as Dockers snare sweet revenge in Perth"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pressure on Gold Coast is set to go into overdrive after the Suns produced a horror show on the way to a 51-point loss to Fremantle at Optus Stadium.<\/p>\n

Murphy Reid (28 disposals) produced a midfield masterclass and Michael Frederick kicked an equal career-high four goals as Fremantle notched their 14th win on the trot with an 11.14 (80) to 3.11 (29) triumph in front of 50,602 fans.<\/p>\n

The win catapulted Fremantle (14-1) two wins clear of second-placed Sydney and three-and-a-half ahead of third-placed Hawthorn, with a top-two finish well and truly theirs for the taking.<\/p>\n

\"Reid<\/p>\n

Murphy Reid and Shai Bolton shone for the Dockers, with 28 and 26 touches respectively. (Richard Wainwright\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

Gold Coast (7-8) started the year as one of the premiership favourites, but are now on a five-match losing run and face a huge battle to turn their season around.<\/p>\n

The Suns only had two majors to their name against Fremantle until Jed Walter ran into an open goal in the dying minutes of the match.<\/p>\n

Some of Gold Coast’s errors were so bad it left coach Damien Hardwick with his hands on his head in frustration in the box.<\/p>\n

Although Gold Coast won the clearance battle 36-24, they failed to capitalise due to horrendous decision-making and poor skill execution.<\/p>\n

\"Coach<\/p>\n

Coach Damien Hardwick was unimpressed by the Suns’ efforts against the dynamic Dockers. (Richard Wainwright\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n

“A great coach of mine, Denis Pagan, used to say if confidence was as easy as walking down the street and buying a bottle of it, everyone would be doing it.” Hardwick said after the match.<\/p>\n

“So my job as a coach is to sit there and get the players to understand why and how we lost, but more importantly, what we are capable of doing when we play our best.<\/p>\n

“Tonight we just reverted back to the middling side that we probably sit at the moment, so we’ve got some work to do.”<\/p>\n

Suns midfielder Noah Anderson (32 disposals, eight clearances) battled hard, but fellow star Christian Petracca (17 disposals, five clearances) was quiet while spending large periods in attack.<\/p>\n

Forward Bailey Humphrey (no score from six disposals) endured another lean outing, while out-of-contract spearhead Ben King was restricted to 1.2 from seven disposals.<\/p>\n

Fremantle had winners all over the field, with Reid’s class with the ball the highlight.<\/p>\n

“He was outstanding,” Dockers coach Justin Longmuir said.<\/p>\n

“He just works his backside off both ways. And then he’s got so much time and composure to make good decisions when he’s got the ball in hand.”<\/p>\n

In another boost, Dockers ruckman Sean Darcy made a welcome return, tallying six disposals, 20 hit-outs and one goal in his first AFL match since round five.<\/p>\n

The Suns beat Fremantle by one point in last year’s elimination final in Perth, and the Dockers came out like a team possessed early in Sunday’s rematch.<\/p>\n

Their intense pressure proved too much for the Suns, with Frederick cashing in with three quick goals, and Luke Jackson adding another from a contested mark to give Fremantle a 28-2 edge at quarter-time.<\/p>\n

King kicked the only goal of the second term to bring the margin back to 20 points.<\/p>\n

But Jackson broke the game open early in the third quarter, nailing his 50m set shot before delivering an assist to Patrick Voss for another.<\/p>\n

When Frederick bobbed up for his fourth goal, the margin was 40 points and it was game over.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The pressure on Gold Coast is set to go into overdrive after the Suns produced a horror show…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[6528,20308,4317,20962,32465,335,32464],"class_list":["post-40069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-perth","tag-damien-hardwick","tag-dockers","tag-fremantle","tag-michael-frederick","tag-murphy-reid","tag-perth","tag-the-suns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40069","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=40069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}