Less than 18 months ago, Fremantle faced a sliding doors moment after suffering a loss so horrific that fans were even calling for Justin Longmuir's head.
Under the bright lights of Friday night football in round-eight last year, the Dockers barely fired a shot on the way to a 61-point loss to Ross Lyon's St Kilda at Marvel Stadium.
It wasn't necessarily the size of the loss that rang major alarm bells, but rather the nature of it.
Fremantle's star-studded midfield were crushed 50-22 at the clearances.
The Dockers lost the inside-50m count 61-34. The contested possession count read 151-103 in favour of St Kilda.
Fans and football experts were calling for blood in the aftermath.
But Fremantle stood strong, with chief executive Simon Garlick backing Longmuir to steady the ship.
The loss proved to be a huge turning point for Fremantle.
Since that dirty night, the Dockers have won 33 of their 42 games to surge into Saturday's grand final against Brisbane while becoming one of the hottest teams in the league.
And it hasn't been due to a personnel overhaul, with 18 of the players who featured that night against St Kilda to now play in the grand final.
Instead, Longmuir reminded his players of the simple importance of sticking to their individual roles rather than trying to do too much to help their teammates.
Playing with freedom and taking on the tackler have also been big themes Longmuir promotes among his players.
"A performance like that on Friday night national TV can test your character, can ask a lot of questions of you as an individual with your own performance and where we're at as a club," Dockers forward Michael Frederick said.
"But I think what was special about our response to that performance throughout the rest of that season, was just how we lent into our connection piece and our role-playing piece.
"I thought that got the ball rolling for us that season. Something sort of just clicked for us with our connection piece and our selfless piece as a group."
Fremantle reeled off a club record 14-straight wins on the way to securing this year's minor premiership.
But they will start as underdogs in the grand final, with Brisbane's three-peat hopes boosted by Lachie Neale overturning his one-match ban at the appeals board on Thursday night.
Both teams have named unchanged line-ups, meaning Longmuir has stuck with Oscar McDonald ahead of fit-again defender Brennan Cox.
