Michael Frederick sparks Fremantle’s eighth straight win over Hawthorn

michael frederick helped Fremantle turn Thursday night at Optus Stadium into an eighth straight win, finishing Hawthorn 12.16 to 11.7 after the Dockers kicked the final five goals. Fremantle had trailed by 19 points early in the final quarter before closing hard on a top-four opponent.

Optus Stadium turnaround

Fremantle’s 15-point win came from a game Hawthorn had controlled before half-time, when Jack Gunston had already kicked five goals. The Dockers answered with pressure and cleaner execution late, and Frederick was one of the players who stood up when the contest tightened.

Josh Treacy, Frederick and Jye Amiss all delivered in the closing stretch, while Hayden Young added a set shot deep in the game. That final burst turned a deficit into the club’s best run under Justin Longmuir and its longest winning streak since 2015.

Serong and Jackson numbers

Caleb Serong finished with 28 disposals, eight clearances and eight inside 50s, the kind of line that keeps Fremantle moving when the forward half dries up. Luke Jackson added 22 disposals and seven clearances and produced a critical smother, giving Fremantle one more possession in a game decided by narrow margins rather than free-flowing scoring.

Hawthorn also lost Tom Barrass in the second quarter with a hamstring issue, which stripped the contest of one more option as Fremantle kept building pressure. For a team trying to measure itself against a fellow top-four side, the key detail is not just the comeback but the response after falling 19 points behind: Fremantle did not chase the game with one moment, it won it with five straight goals and a late sequence led by Frederick. That is the sort of fourth-quarter finish that travels into September.