Fear is a great motivator, so they say. Particularly in sport. And particularly this week for the Western Bulldogs and Fremantle.
Sunday afternoon at Marvel Stadium sees the two teams going head-to-head for a finals spot, barring the unlikely saving grace of Gold Coast losing both its remaining games against lowly Port Adelaide and Essendon.
A berth in the 2025 finals series is the very least either the Bulldogs or the Dockers should be aiming for given their respective capabilities, so winning on Sunday will mean more relief than any sense of jubilation. It's the consequences of defeat which will be far more profound.
Let's deal with the immediate ramifications first. The Western Bulldogs are the AFL's top-scoring team. That should basically ensure a team plays finals, particularly when it's solid enough defensively as well (No.6 for fewest points conceded heading into the final round). And yet here we are.
If the Dogs miss out, they will become the first team for nearly 30 years (Richmond in 1996) to miss out on finals despite ranking top six for both offence and defence. And only the second highest-scoring team in 57 years (Adelaide 2023 the other) to miss.
It seems scarcely believable, meanwhile, that Fremantle could win 15 games and not play finals. That would create unwanted history, only three teams previously in league history having missed out even with 14 wins.
It's hard to think of a bigger disaster than the Dockers' capitulation to end last season, when they were third on the ladder with four rounds to play, but lost the remainder all by 20 points or less. But that was a 12.5-win season.
This year has been 15 wins from 22 games, including victories over ladder leader Adelaide, Hawthorn, Greater Western Sydney on the road and, most memorably, a comeback win over Collingwood at the MCG.
But Freo looks likely (unless it can pull off another huge upset on the road) to pay a huge price for a couple of huge defeats, its 78-point obliteration at Geelong in the first game of the season, and a less-explicable 10-goal "pantsing" at the hands of St Kilda at Marvel Stadium in Round 8, in which the Dockers kicked only two goals to three-quarter time.
In either case, missing out on September will arguably seem even worse again this year than your stock standard "didn't quite clear the bar" post-mortem given the standard the Dogs and Dockers have managed to set.
Then there's the bigger picture view. Sometimes, the step back can offer some sort of comfort where it appeared initially little existed. But again, I'm not sure that's the case for the Dogs and Dockers in 2025. In fact, there's a fair argument it makes things look worse.
Take the Bulldogs. Yes, the Dogs are perennially talked up, quality of the list, handful of the best individual players in the game, potent attack etc. etc. It's why critics (and yep, I'm as guilty as anyone, tipping them to finish fourth) constantly factor them into the flag hunt.
But really, at some point the theory needs to become the practice, the bottom line since the famous 2016 flag just one more grand final and four elimination final losses.
And do the names continue to seduce us too much? Sure, the Dogs can kick cricket scores, key forward pair Aaron Naughton and Sam Darcy now with more than 100 goals between them, Rhylee West with 37. The defence holds up, and the midfield names and numbers are impressive.
Yet the bottom line in 2025 remains that the Dogs have beaten just one final eight contender -- the Giants, twice.
And while the club has shown enormous faith in coach Luke Beveridge, extending his contract by another two years, the Dogs simply can't afford to let their chances go to waste much longer with this group, the third-oldest list in the AFL.
By the time next season starts, skipper Marcus Bontempelli, Tom Liberatore, Adam Treloar, Rory Lobb and Jason Johannisen will all be 30 or older
Age isn't a concern, meanwhile, for Fremantle, which has only the 11th oldest list in the AFL, and the sixth least-experienced. What is a concern, though, is whether the Dockers do anything much well enough to deserve the critical support they continue to attract despite never quite nailing it on the consistency front.
I tipped Fremantle to finish fifth this year, a significant rise on the lowly 16th I'd anticipated for them in 2024 and acknowledgement of what had been (until that costly, late stumble) a pretty impressive season.
The potential 3.5 more wins in 2025 is about whether the Dockers should be tracking, then. What's intriguing, though, is the theory that while the wins can't be understated (that's what it's all about, after all), they've nonetheless perhaps masked some weaknesses and areas which have fallen away last year to this.
Freo has had a lot of close shaves this season, with seven of their 15 wins coming by just 18 points or less. Those narrow wins and couple of heavy losses account for a percentage significantly less than all the other final eight contenders.
And there's a decidedly unglamorous look about the Dockers' overall statistical profile, too. For example, in the 32 key statistical categories measured by Champion Data in their Premiership Standards report, the Dockers rank top six in just three categories.
Fremantle will be devastated should it miss out on finals so narrowly again. But it might also be concerned that its ascent to another finals campaign under Justin Longmuir isn't necessarily the fait accompli many will earmark it as in 2026. The Bulldogs? Well, again, it's potentially a case of "good enough to win it, just couldn't get there to prove it". And frankly, that's becoming a bit of a yawn.
Disaster awaits one of these teams. And if those two potential nightmares aren't enough to scare either team into a top performance when most required on Sunday afternoon, nothing will.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at FOOTYOLOGY.