Fremantle on track to become second-youngest squad in club history to feature in finals – can it emulate the Baby Bombers?
Fremantle’s average age this season is lower than both Richmond and West Coast, but they’re still lumped with huge expectations. Can they emulate the Baby Bombers’ 1993 run to the flag?
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They say that history serves as a powerful guide to the future.
So could a fresh-faced Fremantle do what the Baby Bombers did more than 30 years ago and win the premiership with one of the AFL’s youngest and least experienced teams?
We’ll find out more about the Dockers’ finals credentials on Thursday night against an undermanned Essendon, the club they’re hoping to follow in the footsteps of.
But Fremantle ‘s 2025 group is currently on track to become the second-youngest squad in club history to feature in September.
With the Dockers’ three most experienced players Nat Fyfe, Michael Walters and Jaeger O’Meara playing just six games between them this year due to injury, Fremantle has ranked 18th for age and experience on average in the first half of the season.
Add in Fremantle’s fourth-most experienced player James Aish, who has been selected just twice this year, and the average age of the Dockers’ weekly 23-man team so far in 2025 comes in at a tender 24.6 years.
It makes the Dockers, who can remain in touch with the top four with a win against the Bombers, younger than cellar dwellers Richmond (24.7) and West Coast (24.8).
Fremantle is also currently ranked 18th for experience with an average of 78 games per player, marginally ahead of the Eagles and Tigers (79 games).
The Dockers also have a squad to rival the 1993 Essendon premiership squad, a team of kids that included 18-year-olds Dustin Fletcher and Joe Misiti, 19-year-old Mark Mercuri, and a pair of 20-year-olds in James Hird and Gavin Wanganeen.
When Essendon defeated Carlton by 44 points to claim the most unlikely of premierships, the Baby Bombers boasted an average age of 24.3 years, marginally younger than the Dockers so far in 2025.
With youngsters like Rising Star contender Murphy Reid (18, 13 games), Isaiah Dudley (22, nine games), Karl Worner (22, 20 games), Matt Johnson (22, 50 games), Heath Chapman (23, 54 games), Jye Amiss (21, 57 games) and Josh Treacy (22, 69 games) all comfortably under the average and established members of the Dockers’ best 23, Fremantle still has plenty of room for improvement in the back half of the season.
The Dockers’ exuberance is also reflected in the club’s leadership group. Co-vice-captains Andrew Brayshaw and Caleb Serong are 25 and 24 respectively. Second-year leader Hayden Young is 24 and new inductee Treacy is 22.
Combined with captain Alex Pearce, the voices that carry in the locker room are those in the bottom half of Fremantle’s age profile.
Collingwood’s 2010 team was fractionally younger than the ’93 Bombers with an average age of 24.2 and the Western Bulldogs proved in 2016 that age is just a number with an average age of 24.4
After using age as an excuse in the past, the Dockers should head into the second half of the season confident that Flagmantle and a successful strategic plan are still achievable.
Baby Bombers alumni Gary O’Donnell isn’t sure whether an unexpected premiership is still possible in the modern game but he believes youth was undoubtedly one of Essendon’s strengths in 1993.
“Could you do it with a bunch of young kids these days? I’m not sure,” O’Donnell told SEN WA. “The game has changed and it’s a tougher competition with 18 teams. But I’m glad it happened and I’ll always remember them.
“I wasn’t one of the babies in that team. I wish I was because then I’d be 10 years younger. We just didn’t know how good some of these guys were. They were still teenagers. There will be three or four from that team who will end up in the Hall of Fame.
“We found the right chemistry. We had a group of young kids who never gave up. They were pretty talented. But they didn’t know how to lose. We also had five or six of us who were older and set a good direction I suppose. It all fell into place.
“You never know what’s going to happen. It can all turn around quickly with footy teams.”
Taking the entire list into consideration, Fremantle ranks 17th this year for games played with an average of 55.4 and 15th for age with a 24.0 average.
The only younger squad to reach the post-season was Fremantle’s inaugural finals team in 2003, coincidentally losing to Essendon in an elimination bout.
Back then, the Dockers ranked 15th for age (22.6 average) and 16th for average games (43.3). It’s the only Fremantle side to play finals while ranking in the bottom four for both categories.
Fremantle great Paul Hasleby was 22 when the Dockers lost to the Bombers by 44 points at Subiaco Oval. He said the key to making history was not acknowledging the club’s list demographic.
“It was a four-year build to that point,” Hasleby said. “We had a fair list turnover and there were a lot of young players that came in around ’99 and 2000.
“Matthew Pavlich was among that and Justin Longmuir was the year before. Des Headland and Luke McPharlin were in the mix as well.
“We never really saw ourselves as young. That would be the same with this current group. You have to believe your best footy is good enough to put you in the position to play finals.
“It was certainly the unknown. I remember the build-up to that year was all about not mentioning the ‘F word.’ It was a one week at a time mentality.”
Fremantle’s current powerbrokers have taken a markedly different approach.
At the club’s season launch in February, president Chris Sutherland declared “I’m done with talking, it’s time for action.”
The expectation internally is that it’s time for Fremantle to end a 31-year premiership drought. But are the Dockers doing themselves a disservice by declaring their flag ambitions despite the club’s youth and inexperience?
“I don’t get too caught up in list demographics,” Hasleby said. “If their senior players were fit and available in Walters, Fyfe and O’Meara, all of a sudden they bump up those numbers.
“I think the frustration of still being one of the youngest teams is that it’s been a slow build for Dockers fans. It’s been seven or eight years and they’re still in this position.
“It’s because of their list management strategy but I don’t think you can use it as an excuse which they aren’t this year.
“They’ve put it on the table. They’ve got enough talent.”
Originally published as Fremantle on track to become second-youngest squad in club history to feature in finals – can it emulate the Baby Bombers?
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