Agony in Fremantle as Dockers fall at the final hurdle

Fremantle’s Cappuccino Strip went from a roaring sea of purple to the quiet of a wake in a matter of seconds, as the Dockers desperate bid for an elusive AFL premiership slipped through their fingers in a devastating final-quarter collapse.

Just hours earlier, the heart of Freo was electric. Fans packed the streets and stood on street corners just to catch a glimpse of the big screens of the game against the Brisbane Lions.

But as the final siren sounded, sealing another agonising grand final heartbreak, over a decade of built-up hope vanished into thin air.

Minutes before bounce down, Dockers fan Lachlan Smith said he was hopeful this year would be their year.

“I’m a little bit nervous. I was back here in 2013, and it didn’t go our way, so hopefully we can pull it off this year. But yeah, very nervous, very nervous, but we can do it!” Smith said.

Smith was here in 2013 when the Dockers lost their first chance to win the flag to Hawthorn by only 15 points.

After the first quarter, fans were a little on edge as to how the game would go.

“There were some poor referee choices in that quarter,” James Orie said at the free viewing space in front of the National Hotel.

Despite originally being an Eagles fan, Orie said it would have been a win for all if the Dockers came out on top.

“I used to be an Eagles fan, but I’ve jumped onto the Freo bandwagon because WA is WA and if one of us wins, we all win.”

Screams of “Freo” and “Wharfie Time” could be heard from anywhere in the CBD, and when the time came to unleash the bells, the crowds went wild.

Wharfie Time went off late in the final quarter immediately following Patrick Voss’s goal, which gave the Dockers a 17-point lead with roughly four minutes remaining

Around 40,000 die-hard Dockers fans flocked into Fremantle to watch the historic game at a variety of paid and free viewing sites across the port city including the National Hotel, Fremantle Oval and the Federal Hotel.

Meanwhile, in a sea of purple stood one proud lion.

Father and son duo Nathan and Oliver Peek are both football fanatics, but they go for opposing teams.

“I’m from Queensland, so I’ve been a Lions supporter for my life,” Nathan said.

Whereas for Oliver, he says he jumped onto his mother’s team.“Most of my family’s on my mum’s side, they’re all Dockers supporters, so I followed them,” he said.

With five minutes on the clock left, Nathan told his son the game was over and that Freo had won. Minutes later, he was almost in tears.

When the final siren went off and the Dockers had lost by seven points, Fremantle was silent.

“I’ve never been to a mass funeral, but this is what I imagine it feels like,” Tom Wilco said.

“I’m devastated, gutted. We thought we had it in the bag. I’m speechless.

“We Wharfied too close to the sun, unfortunately.”

Another fan spoke through tears in shock of the outcome.

“Twenty seven years of my life I’ve been going for Freo, me, my whole family, and we got so close for the second time and I’m just absolutely gutted,” Stephenie Borowiec said.

“It just turned at the end, within the blink of an eye.”

Borowiec said she still loved the team regardless, though.

“I’d say good game to our boys. They played so well, especially for how new they are to AFL,” she said.

“We don’t have a lot of boys who have been in the team for a while or in AFL for a while. So they smashed it. I’m still proud of each and every one of them.”

As quickly as Fremantle became packed with people, it emptied just as fast. Fans wasted no time departing the port city, tucking their hopes for a premiership win into their backpacks for next season.

While the Dockers may have lost, Fremantle star Shai Bolton was still a winner taking home the Norm Smith Medal.