Ryan Buckland: Nat Fyfe is the Luke Skywalker-like figure the Dockers need as they face September tests

The return of Nat Fyfe to this Fremantle line up might be as close to a cheat code as we have seen in the modern AFL history.

In the second series of Star Wars television series The Mandalorian, the titular character and his band of allies are facing a relentless foe that seems unbeatable when in comes a hooded figure with a green lightsaber ablaze to save the day.

Nat Fyfe, returning to this Fremantle side, is that figure. The Dockers don’t yet find themselves facing that impossible enemy, and right now they probably feel invincible after beating both Melbourne and Brisbane in consecutive weeks. But history shows young, rising sides face a stern test from a more senior team on their way to the premiership.

Think Melbourne’s 2018 preliminary final against West Coast, or the Western Bulldogs against Hawthorn in a 2016 semi-final. The Dees couldn’t get it done, but the Dogs did.

I’m not saying Fyfe is Luke Skywalker. But I’m not not saying it either.

Fremantle’s wins against Melbourne and Brisbane over the past fortnight could barely have been more impressive. The Dockers put up the highest score against the Dees in 2022, and held Brisbane to its second-lowest score of the season. These results came after the knives were out following losses against lesser sides. It is the stuff that premiership teams are made of.

The Dockers aren’t a complete side. Very few teams reach that highest of highs, and none in the first season of their contending run. Melbourne’s transformation between 2018 and 2021 is the perfect example: an attacking powerhouse in 2018, exposed the year after, only to regroup and build the best defence in the league in the last 18 months.

Fremantle under Justin Longmuir has built from the back as has typically been the formula for success in the modern AFL. To go to this next level the Dockers have added an outside speed that allows them to obliterate teams on the turnover.

The remaining gaps in their game are modest, but leave the Dockers exposed. But this is where Skywalker, sorry, Fyfe comes in. His return could not have been better timed.

To demonstrate just how hand-in-glove Fyfe will be for this Dockers side, I’ve taken a look through Fremantle’s statistics for the first half of the season and compared these to the rest of the league. Through this, I have deliberately looked for holes: areas where the Dockers rank towards the bottom of the league.

On every defensive indicator the Dockers are at or near the top of the league. But in the front half, it’s a little more mixed.

The Dockers rank second in the league in forward 50 tackles per inside 50 on the season, landing an effective stop 22 per cent of the time (slightly behind GWS in first place). But other advanced forward 50 numbers are not as rosy.

Fremantle is ranked 14th for ground ball gets per inside 50, and 18th for marks inside 50 per inside 50. This is likely in large part due to the Dockers’ tendency to prioritise speed of movement over precision. Their propensity is to run the ball over the stripe, or kick it into space.

But Fyfe as a forward does both of these things extremely well. His aerial prowess is well-documented; even when playing as a pure midfielder Fyfe typically averaged a similar number of contested marks per game as all but the most dominant key forwards.

It is why all of the talk has been about Fyfe’s return has been focussed on his capacity to help the Dockers forward of the ball. He will provide another target for the Fremantle midfield, and another headache for opposition defenders to have to worry about. That has flow on benefits for the rest of the forward line as a back six has to figure out whether they send their best, second best or third best defender.

Fyfe’s impact needn’t just be inside 50 either. Champion Data tracks statistics for each team’s win and loss rate in one on one contests across the ground — both in the air and on the ground. The Dockers create about an average number of offensive one on ones per game, but are 15th in the league for win rate at 23.4 per cent. Fyfe’s career offensive one on one win rate is 42.5 per cent, and his rate in his last 50 games is similarly strong at 41.4 per cent.

While tempting, the Dockers could also use Fyfe’s centre bounce prowess. Prior to Sunday’s third quarter mauling of the Lions, Fremantle was just a middling centre bounce team with an average differential per game of 0.2. It’s less a weakness than the club’s forward half contest work, but it is a gap.

Fyfe is obviously one of the best centre bounce players of his generation, with his size and dexterity hard for opponents to stop. This will help give the Dockers some more drive from the centre, but more importantly will help to close that off as a score source for the opposition.

Getting Fyfe to play the Dustin Martin role, of centre bounce then deep forward, might not be too far from the truth. Fyfe is not the same player as Martin, who is as strong a one on one player but does his work on the ground compared to in the air. This means Fyfe’s value will be higher up the ground rather than isolating as the deepest forward every time.

Regardless of role, the nostalgia hit of watching Fyfe the forward, sitting on heads will be every bit as potent as those few minutes of a Jedi shredding his way through a bunch of robots. At least for me.