Fremantle’s top four hopes are just about shot but they’ll need to pick up the ‘W’ against their cross-town rivals West Coast on Saturday night to ensure they host a home final.
Best Bet
This total looks a gift from the punting gods.
As we’ve frequently discussed this year, Freo night games at Optus are basically an automatic tip for the under given that all sixteen have fallen short of the total.
On top of this, however, comes the forecast of rain in Perth on Saturday. In four Freo night games at Optus when rain has fallen, the average total has been 106 points (even adjusting for 2020 shortened games). That’s absurd.
West Coast have booted two of their five highest scores in the last fortnight, but that’s come courtesy of a six-goal effort from Jack Darling against Gold Coast and eight from Josh Kennedy in his final game last week against Adelaide. Kennedy obviously won’t be out there this week and Darling will be worn like a glove by Alex Pearce and Brennan Cox. Their forward line is threadbare without these two so it’s hard to see the Eagles kicking more than 50-odd points here.
Given Freo are only the 12th ranked offence and are averaging just 62.75 points per game themselves over the last month, this total looks far too high even without the rain. If the rain arrives, double down.
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Same Game Multi
This is a tough game for player props given players from both teams are horribly inconsistent disposal winners and goal kickers. The rain further complicates matters.
We’ll take a slight risk on this being a very low-scoring game and West Coast keeping the margin under 40 points. The Dockers have only one 40+ point win since Round 8 (by 41 points against St Kilda).
Michael Walters has kicked a goal in four straight games while Jamie Cripps has 19 from 15 games this year.
Value Bet
Five of Fremantle’s 20 games this year have gone under this mark. Given their forward line is underperforming and their defence is more than capable of keeping West Coast’s popgun offence to a minuscule score, a very low total is absolutely on the cards.
