The Sandgroper roper. He's a rustler! Wrangler Wallsy and co are out there on their annual muster, lassoing and herding prized young West Aussies back to the Fremantle farm. Time to Restump Podcast the trade parade.

The seemingly very focused Freo strategy of enticing quality age profile applicable young west Australians who fill or add to positions of need, continues. So far, we’ve seen off Liam Reidy and we welcomed home ex-East Fremantle product, Judd McVee, to the Freo family.

Under the clever guise of being neighbourly, Wallsy and co orchestrated a position that saw Judd McVee head to Fremantle, essentially for a very fair price, and potentially substantial unders. It unlocked the block that allowed West Coast to get their mature aged defender, Brandon Starcevich.

We gave up picks 12, 33, 44 and 50 and received Judd McVee, pick 19, 23 and 46.

Liam Reidy has made his way to Carlton with pick 53 and 71 while picks 50 and 68 returned. Nothing to write home about but what more could we realistically expect? You don’t have to win every trade.

Trade period isn’t over yet but you’d imagine there wouldn’t be too much more action from a purple perspective, other than Will Brodie heading to Port Adelaide to team up with Josh Carr. But who knows what unfolds in the frantic few moments before the final bell?

Has the free agency compensation system gone past the point of repair? The manipulation and exploiting of the seemingly fluid rules, the lack of transparency around decisions made and compensatory awards handed down, suggest it’s time to either scrap it altogether or blow it up and rebuild it in a more appropriate manner. Jojo has been banging on about it for years and now it surely seems he’ll get his wish.

The Chief is still running his one-man campaign to sound out Geelong’s Ted Chlohesy. With Switta’s often unreliable availability, could Ted be the perfect candidate to mitigate that risk and fill our post-Schultzy forward pressure deficiency?

However, we’re already in the workshop building the wagon to carry the picks, points and punters for the Chadwick28 Restump campaign ready to roll out next year!

As always, we somehow come up with plenty of propaganda to prattle on about. So, as we always say, if you’re not pickled or plastered and passed out on purple, your performance isn’t presentable. If you haven’t overdosed, you’re not doing it right. Feel free to join us on the pod to get a momentary fix, or even just to top up.

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Parting ways with our popular purple people is particularly painful this year. 674 games of experience and 3 meaningful contributors. Time to Restump Podcast all the Docker developments.

Any of us may momentarily win an aging process battle, but none of us win the war. While Jimmy Aish would have it in him to go around again, Nat Fyfe and Sonny Walters were formidable in their individual efforts to prolong the inevitable. But it does little to ease the pain of having to say goodbye.

However, the cycle of purple life continues and the Freo show must go on. They're certainly not the first three we've had to watch disappear into the horizon and they won't be the last.

This fast paced, often ruthless industry doesn't allow for long periods of mourning or reflection. The season's dust is barely settled, the send offs seemed shortened and we suddenly find ourselves in Brownlow medal, draft and trade talk territory.

Almost in an instant the conversation switches from ‘who we're losing’ to ‘who will take their place.’ On some level it feels a little disrespectful, like we've moved on too soon. But such is the nature of the AFL beast.

Were Andy Brayshaw and Caleb Serong's dominance of Fremantle's Brownlow votes a true reflection of our group’s individual contributions, or was it simply a product of the ‘midfielders’ award? Both had very good seasons, but you're trying to tell me the All-Australian jacket wearing Jordan Clark had just a 2-game polling, 4 vote total season? Really?

In terms of personnel going forward, what do we need to compliment the list to take another step forward in 2026?

With Will Brody and Liam Reidy requesting trades, Quinton Narkle joining the retirees and the unlucky Jack Delean and Odin Jones suffering delisting, it has opened up a substantial 8 list spots so far.

The grapevine chatter regarding the possible departure of Sean Darcy just won't quieten down. Is it a case of where there's smoke there's fire or is it all smoke and fiery mirrors? What do the rumours do to Liam Reidy's thought process?

33-year-old Collingwood forward Jamie Elliott's name keeps popping up in purple provinces. And while we're on the Collingwood camp, there seems to be a Bobby Hill Freo Fanclub? Regardless of 'get-ability' are they genuine needs?

Those names and plenty more are, at the very least, up for discussion.

Always plenty of Docker drivel to be discussed. We'll cast the net wide on all things Freo, we'll get an update on JoJo's long-awaited bar opening and the Chief has hinted that he may unfortunately subject us to another episode of the Neighbourhood Watch.

With the ink running dry here, let's put down the purple pen, pick up the talking stick and continue on the pod. So, if you haven't got a sock drawer to tidy, grass to watch grow or purple paint to watch dry, by all means, join us and get involved in the conversation.

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Do we all need to go guts up in the Bahamas for a while? To be fair to the Gold Coast Suns, if we’d gotten out of jail we would’ve been charged with stealing. Time to Restump Podcast the 1-point heartbreak.

Well that stung and it may have done irreparable damage to our souls. While Freo fans didn’t buy into The West’s revenue generating clickbait idiocy with their ‘easy Freo final' back page, we all obviously had high hopes of extending the season.

However, we got Sunburnt so we bow out of season 2025 with a what would've been, could've been, maybe should've been but didn’t quite end up being, result.

It was a typical Freo roller coaster season ride as we went from eating the chocolates in the frying pan, to sucking on boiled lollies in the fire. We were a basket case by round 8, finals bound a few games later.

We’ve done the full suite of emotions since Saturday night, but after the mental anguish, pondering the reasons why and the reasons why not, and internally asking ourselves the irrationally instinctive rhetorical questions like, how did this happen, who do we need and who needs to go… we arrive at some sort of pragmatic peace.

The basic long and simple short of it is, the Suns were simply better for longer. Now obviously, the superiority for a single point margin time period is all but negligible. But the soul-destroying reality is, that's all that is required.

Really other than sporadic poor decision making, some maybe finals frenzied forced skill errors and several less than ideal forward 50 entries, we didn’t do too much wrong and the team will benefit from the experience.

If you had to pinpoint it without hanging individuals, we’d probably note the 2nd quarter with 5 minutes remaining on the clock. In that period of red time rampage, the Suns managed 6 inside 50s and put 4 goals 1 on the board, while our Freo folk failed to trouble the scorers from 4 inside 50s.

Must be said though, generating just 7 scores from 29 inside 50s for a half, tells you you’re doing plenty right, but the important part catastrophically wrong.

We couldn’t get it done for Fyfey and now any on field remnants of the 2013 grand final era are gone. However, we let Nat go gradually which helped ease the pain of goodbye.

And while we couldn’t get it done for Fyfe, if you can distance yourself from the pain of Saturday night and view it with momentary detachment, it’s hard not to have a little smile for the Gold Coast Suns and David Swallow.

We know far too well what they have been through and for them to have their first ever draftee kick the winning score in his and his team’s first ever final, in what is his retirement year, it’s a great story and a wonderful football moment.

Ok, enough of that nonsense. So, putting the purple hat back on, we’ve just put away a 16 win season, we’ve got one of the league's youngest and most inexperienced lists that's just experienced a final. We’ve got a collective with a non-traditional professional Fremantle mindset, we’ve got the right guy in charge and we’re on a trend heading in a north east direction. We haven’t even cracked the window yet! We’re only warming up!

We’re a bit light on for detail and analysis here so we’ll dig much deeper on the pod and relive and re-visit those irrational instinctive questions.

So, if you’re struggling to come to terms with the result and managing the fall out is too heavy a burden, well many ears make light listening, so come in for the conversation. We'll talk through the temporary trauma, absolve the anguish, make some mental mending milestones and procure the pragmatic perspective ready to purple back up and go again in about 6 months’ time.

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