Tom Sheridan

Just before the AFL deadline of October 31 for club list submissions, nine clubs delisted players. Several clubs also signed delisted free agents.

Hawthorn delisted Will Langford, Brendan Whitecross and Kieran Lovell. Langford played 72 games for the Hawks including the 2014 premiership but managed only six games in 2018. Whitecross, a life member of the Hawks, played 111 games since 2007 in an injury-plagued career. He did play in VFL team Box Hill's 2018 premiership team.

Rick Browner reporting for AFANA from Perth

Fremantle coach Ross Lyon proved his adage that he and his Dockers will take on Geelong, “Anywhere, anytime,” when his team powered away for a win at Simonds Stadium in their Qualifying Final encounter. Geelong had a 99% win ratio at Simonds going into the game and had every reason to expect another notch in their belts. It was a bruising and often spiteful match that epitomized the standard of play in a Finals series.

Rick Browner reporting for AFANA from Patersons Stadium, Perth

Coming off their first win of the season last round, the Greater Western Sydney Giants were brutalized by a rampant Fremantle Dockers team in their Round 20 clash. GWS won the toss and inexplicably kicked into a breeze that was worth at least a couple of goals. Fremantle started with a bang when Nick Suban kicked their first goal within 30 seconds of the bounce down. They were pressuring the exits from the back line with precision and the GIants were finding it hard to hit up targets as they tried to move forward. It was intense football from the home team with an avalanche of goals the result. Michael Walters scored the next goal with his uncanny sense of where the big sticks are, snapping truly off his left foot from 40 meters out. The Giants were rattled and gave up three more goals due to Docker intensity at the ball. Hayden Ballantyne, Chris Mayne and Lachie Neal all registered goals to have six different goal scorers at that stage of the game. Three of those six goals came from turnovers by a struggling GWS. It could have been a lot worse as the Dockers kicked seven behinds to go with those goals. GWS had limited opportunities to score including one shot from Jonathan Giles that hit the post. The luckless Giants had failed to score a goal in the quarter and trailed by a whopping 40 points at the change.