Fremantle were handed a heavy defeat at the hands of Hawthorn on Sunday at Optus Stadium with the Hawks running out 59-point winners.
Hawthorn raced out of the blocks with two goals inside the opening two minutes and outclassed Fremantle from the stoppages with 148 contested possessions to 125 and delivering 61 inside 50s to 43.
After Hawthorn’s fast start, Fremantle evened the ledger with a three-goal burst in the opening term.
From there, Hawthorn piled on eight-straight goals while Fremantle wasted their chances by kicking 0.8 in that period.
Fremantle’s leaders toiled hard on a tough day with Lachie Neale and David Mundy leading the way with 37 and 34 disposals respectively.
Brownlow Medal favourite Tom Mitchell was Hawthorn’s best with 42 disposals while Luke Breust kicked four for the Hawks.
Fremantle had seven individual goalkickers through Luke Ryan, David Mundy, Andrew Brayshaw, Ed Langdon, Sean Darcy, Darcy Tucker and Bailey Banfield.
Joel Hamling and Nathan Wilson fought valiantly in a defence that was under siege, pulling in eight marks each while Hamling spoiled many of Hawthorn’s forward advances.
First-year midfielder Andrew Brayshaw continued his push for a NAB AFL Rising Star nomination with a career-high 25 disposals while kicking a goal.
The loss will be taken as a tough but important lesson for a developing Fremantle group.
The game pitted the round’s oldest and youngest teams against each other, with Hawthorn’s average age of 26.71 more than three-years higher than Fremantle’s (23.54).
FREMANTLE 3.3 3.5 4.9 7.11 (53)
HAWTHORN 5.2 8.6 14.8 17.10 (112)
GOALS
Fremantle: Darcy, Banfield, Langdon, Mundy, Brayshaw, Tucker, Ryan
Hawthorn: Breust 4, Gunston 2, Mitchell 2, Schoenmakers 2, Puopolo, Roughead, Shiels, Miles, Burgoyne, Hardwick, O’Meara
BEST
Fremantle: Mundy, Neale, Langdon, Brayshaw, Wilson
Hawthorn: Mitchell, Breust, O’Meara, Stratton, Shiels, Burgoyne
INJURIES
Fremantle: Cam Sutcliffe (left hamstring)
Hawthorn: Nil
Reports: Nil
Umpires: Fisher, Haussen, Dalgleish
Official crowd: 41,845 at Optus Stadium
