the pressure is all on hawthorn, page-18

I think it's a double-edged sword.

The fact that there are so many things aginst Freo might just count in their favour.

I also heard the commentators talk about Freo's poor record against Hawthorn, yet out of all of the games the teams have played, only one game has been played at the MCG according to the list provided and that was back in 2011 and it was anything but a blowout with a scoreline of 17.9 to 13.11.

The Fremantle of today is unrecognisable from the Fremantle of a couple of seasons ago. Fremantle in 2011 finished 10th and Ross Lyon was only appointed coach at season's end.

They're a vastly more experienced and more capable side these days and they are led by the most capable coach in the competition.

We got a glimpse of what Fremantle is capable of at the MCG last year when in the Elimination Final they blew Geelong away with a quarter time scoreline of 5.7 to 0.1. Geelong were lucky it wasn't 10.2 to 0.1. In any case Freo went on to beat the Cats in one of the most impressive performances I have seen.

Then Freo went to Geelong for a Qualifying Final in Geelong, a venue where the Cats had won something like 42 of their previous 44 games, yet against all the odds in a game no-one thought they would win they recorded a very impressive 12.15 to 9.18 victory.

This is not the same Freo under Ross Lyon. They can win big games in Melbourne. They did it against Geelong at the MCG last year, they did it again in Geelong earlier this month and they'll do it again next weekend IMO.