Hawthorn make fourth grand final in a row
Result ends hopes of western derby grand final, with Hawks to meet either West Coast or North Melbourne in premiership decider.
PT1M30S 620 349HAWTHORN 5.2 7.2 11.3 15.4 (94) FREMANTLE 2.1 4.4 8.4 10.7 (67)
Goals: Hawthorn: C Rioli 3, J Roughead 2, M Suckling 2, R Schoenmakers 2, B Hill, B McEvoy, D Hale, I Smith, L Breust, T Duryea. Fremantle: M Walters 3, J Griffin 2, C Mayne, H Ballantyne, M Barlow, M Pavlich, S Hill.
BEST: Hawthorn: S Mitchell, L Hodge, T Duryea, I Smith, C Rioli, B Lake. Fremantle: D Mundy, L Spurr, N Fyfe, G Ibbotson, M Walters, J Griffin.
Injuries: Hawthorn: L Hodge (corked leg). Fremantle: N Fyfe (leg).
Reports: Fremantle: Michael Walters (Fremantle) reported for striking Taylor Duryea (Hawthorn) after three-quarter time siren. Matt Taberner (Fremantle) errant elbow on Luke Hodge (Hawthorn) in the third quarter.
Umpires: Matt Stevic, Jeff Dalgleish, Brett Rosebury.
Official Crowd: 41,508 at Domain Stadium.
Hawthorn's chances of an amazing premiership three-peat remain very much intact.
Jarryd Roughead of the Hawks celebrates after kicking a goal during Friday night's preliminary final against Fremantle. Photo: Getty Images
The Hawks withstood a dogged Fremantle to win their preliminary final by 27 points at Domain Stadium on Friday night.
The Hawks led by 17 points at the final term, but that was scaled back to just nine points very quickly after the restart and the Dockers seemed to take control of the game.
The prize of a week's break for beating the Sydney Swans in a qualifying final was eventually the difference. The Dockers have not been the best final-quarter side this year, with a 12-11 record.
Grant Birchall of the Hawks breaks from a pack during Friday's preliminary final. Photo: Getty Images
The Hawks had won 19 of 24 fourth terms in 2015.
But Fremantle failed to make the most of their chances early in the final term at one end. And at the other, defensive errors midway through the final term were costly.
Cyril Rioli made them pay on both occasions, with consecutive goals that put the result beyond doubt.
Following the Dockers' exit in the prelims who do Freo fans get behind in the grand final? Photo: Getty Images
The Hawks will play in their fourth consecutive grand final next Saturday at the MCG, against either West Coast or North Melbourne.
The Dockers become the first side since Adelaide in 2005 to miss out on a grand final berth after having finished the home and away season on top of the ladder.
For the first 10 minutes of the game it appeared as though having to travel to Perth twice in just over two weeks was too much for the reigning premier.
That's when Chris Mayne, playing in his 150th AFL game, walked in deliberately, looking to kick his side's third goal and give Fremantle an early 16-point lead.
The minor premiers were doing a great job at bottling the ball up in the midfield and winning the clearances. They then took turns in running into an open forward line.
It worked so well and resulted in goals to Michael Walters and Jon Griffin – and should have worked for Mayne too.
But he missed and the momentum of the game swung back to Hawthorn.
Five minutes later the Hawks had the lead and they weren't made to work anywhere near as hard for it as they should have.
Two goals came from ill-discipline.
Hayden Ballantyne was the first culprit, felling Matthew Suckling outside the Hawks attacking 50. The Dockers defender who had the ball was forced to hand it over to Isaac Smith, who kicked the Hawks' first goal.
David Hale was the recipient of a freebie five minutes later. He was 65m from goal when his skipper Luke Hodge was barged into. Hale went to the goalline, kicked truly and the Hawks had the lead.
You can't give the Hawks goals away that easily.
To compound the Dockers issues, their star midfielder Nat Fyfe was struggling.
He hit a contest hard early in the game and collided with Brian Lake who was, playing his 250th game. Fyfe came off second best spent a lot of the first term on the bench with ice on his calf.
He stayed on and was clearly labouring, but still finished with 24 possessions.
Meanwhile, the Hawks key playmakers, Hodge and Sam Mitchell were getting plenty of the ball. They had 33 possessions between them in the first half, equal to the number of times they were booed by the very vocal Fremantle crowd.
The attention made little difference.
There was no way Ryan Crowley should have played on Friday night, having not played any football all year, but surely someone else could have played tightly on Mitchell. Whoever plays the Hawks next week surely won't afford him that much room.
The Hawks kicked five goals to end the first term, Ryan Schoenmakers kicking one right on the quarter-time siren to make the margin 19 points.
His goal a minute into the second term hurt the home side even more.
The scoring slowed right down after that, both sides kicking two goals apiece in the second term. Again the Dockers missed a chance to kick an important goal as Griffin hit the post after the half-time siren, having taken a huge mark just before it.
Goal-scoring has been an issue for Fremantle for a while; it cost them the premiership in 2013 when the Hawks beat them 11.11 to 8.14.
It hurt them again on Friday night. So did not having Luke McPharlin in defence.
The veteran key defender is the marshall of the Docker defence, but has been missing for the entire finals series with a calf injury.
The results was nine Hawks players kicking goals in their first 10, six of them courtesy of marks inside their forward 50 that McPharlin would usually have been there to contest.
He would not have been able to do anything when Matthew Suckling kicked a goal from well outside 50 after the three-quarter-time siren to give the Hawks a 17-point lead and a good look at another grand final.
