Fremantle captain Alex Pearce has spoken on the "driving factor" the playing group holds to bring the first AFL premiership to Cockburn.
The Western Australian club's ongoing endeavours to end their flag drought are set to be met with arguably their best chance of going the distance this year as Justin Longmuir's list sits ready to contend again.
Not shying away from discussing the thought of a title "our club deserves", Pearce and his teammates are continuing to dream of taking the Dockers to the promised land.
"We speak quite openly about what becoming the first team to win a premiership for Fremantle will mean and will do to our community and our fans," Pearce told Zero Hanger.
"The enormity of that and what we can what we can provide is spoken about and certainly not lost on us.
"It's a driving factor that we feel our town, our community and our club deserves a premiership, and we want to bring that to them."
Pearce will again lead the Dockers from Longmuir's last line, with the Fremantle rearguard one of the most stingy defences in the competition.
The club's backline was heavily hit with setbacks in 2024, particularly among their tall defensive stocks, with Pearce, All-Australian Luke Ryan and key backman Brennan Cox featuring in the same game on just two occasions.
The extended absence of both Cox and Pearce throughout last season gave debutant Josh Draper the chance to flourish, with the athletic backman playing 20 games in purple.
The mix of formidable key defenders and attacking ground-level options has Pearce and the Dockers excited for the year to come.
"It's exciting to hopefully play some footy alongside Luke and Brennan again. We're good mates and I don't think we played much together last year," he said.
"To fit Josh in there as well, along with our smalls, we feel like we do have quite a solid defence.
"Josh had a great year. To come in with Brennan and Oscar McDonald going down, he really showed great improvement throughout the season with ability to show off his natural athleticism and his confidence when he's got the ball. He's great and he's taken steps forward this pre-season as well."
Fremantle's pre-season program has also given the Dockers' backline prime preparation for a gruelling season ahead, coming up against their own damaging front third.
Bustling big man Josh Treacy enjoyed a breakout 2024 season to boot 45 goals in 20 games to lead the club's goalkicking, with young sharpshooter Jye Amiss contributing 36 majors of his own.
Pearce has tipped Treacy to continue his upward trend as he looks to make his case as an All-Australian calibre forward, with Amiss not far behind him as he enters his fourth season in the top flight.
"Josh has continued to just be a hungry competitor, which I think we all saw last year," the Dockers captain said.
"But he's continued to strive to improve and find new ways to get better, and he's been great to play on this pre-season.
"Jai Amiss has taken huge steps forward in his footy, I think he can be a really big improver for us this year. To have those two and Jacko playing in the same forward line is really dangerous.
"Then you add Shai in there with our already dangerous smalls, Frederick, Switkowski, Sonny... I think we've got a forward line that can really cause some headaches for teams."
Fremantle's 2025 season gets underway with a trip to Geelong on Saturday, March 15.
