THIS time next year I wonder if Fremantle might not look back on the Chris Connolly saga and admit it was all a bit of a mistake. That maybe it might have been better sticking with the six-year coach and working with him rather than making it impossible for him to stay. And that maybe the example set by Geelong 12 months ago wasn't such a bad one.

It is an argument that swings on whether the 2006 Dockers were over-achieving preliminary finalists or whether the 2007 Dockers are an under-achieving 13th-placed side.

I think they are actually somewhere in the middle.

In March, I tipped them to finish sixth, so they are down a little, but I've got to wonder if expectations and reality at Fremantle Oval haven't got a little mixed up. One good season doesn't give any side the right to assume it has "made it".

The Dockers finished fourth last year, 10th in 2005, ninth in '04, seventh in '03 and 13th in '02. And that's after being wooden-spooners in 2001. Since joining the AFL in 1995, they have played in four finals for one win — a 28-point victory over Melbourne at Subiaco last year.

I've got to think that maybe a couple of Dockers who I heard talking about being in "a premiership phase" pre-season might have been getting just a little bit ahead of themselves.

It's impossible to be in a premiership phase until you've actually won a flag.

I can't help but draw a strong comparison between Fremantle and Geelong. Twelve months ago, the Cats were 10th on the ladder and coach Mark Thompson was under all sorts of pressure. If you believe all the scuttlebutt, had he not been under contract for 2007 he would have been gone.

But instead of sacking a coach who had taken them to three finals campaigns in seven years, the Cats hierarchy stuck with him.

They conducted an extensive review of their football operation, took strong steps to rectify the perceived problem areas, and threw it back on the coach and the players.

And look at the results. Have the Cats been so much more successful this year because Thompson has coached so much better? Is it that the environment is so much more conducive to success? Is it just the players?

The Cats of 2005 weren't that different to the Dockers of 2007.

They had climbed temptingly close to the top of the football mountain when they played in a 2004 preliminary final, losing by nine points to the Brisbane Lions. That, after they'd finished seventh, 12th, ninth and 12th under Thompson from 2000 to 2003, and before they finished fifth and 10th under him in 2005 and '06.

Like Fremantle, they had added a "name" key forward to a losing preliminary final side. Brad Ottens was to the '05 Cats what Chris Tarrant is to the '07 Dockers.

The Cats hung on a little longer after their preliminary final loss of '04, but 12 months later, they slipped — just as Fremantle has done this year.

One preliminary final appearance certainly doesn't make a premiership side. The Lions played in losing preliminary finals in 1996 and '99 before winning in 2001, '02 and '03. Port Adelaide, likewise, in 2002 and '03 before they won in '04.

Consistency is the stamp of a very, very good AFL player and a very, very good AFL team. It's not something that just happens, especially not overnight. And for Fremantle it hasn't happened yet.

You'd have to be a Fremantle insider to really know where the Dockers were at after they'd been beaten by Sydney by 35 points in last year's Telstra Stadium preliminary final, when Barry Hall, Mick O'Loughlin and Ryan O'Keefe combined for 14 goals to match the visitors' total.

They'd played a terrific brand of football in the second half of the year, got on a nine-game winning streak heading into the finals to climb from 10th, and ran into the defending premier on home turf in week three of the finals.

What happened next? They traded early draft picks to recruit Tarrant and Dean Solomon, meaning their three selections in the so-called "super draft" were numbers 31, 52 and 77.

There have been plenty suggesting this sent a bad message to the playing group, perhaps helping them to get ahead of themselves in their mindset, but I cannot come at that.

Who is to say that Connolly, in his end-of-season assessment of his list, hadn't decided they were short one key forward, that they'd relied too much on Matthew Pavlich for too long, that Tarrant, an All-Australian, was the ideal solution?

Also, that Solomon was another good pick-up who added a little toughness and experience to the group.

You cannot judge those sorts of things on one season. Or 15 games.

The remaining question is whether the Dockers were really ready to take the next step this year.

No doubt they are entitled to think they should be higher on the ladder than 13th. But is that not something that could have been addressed through normal channels at the end of the season? Only "insiders" really know. But from an outside perspective the only difference between Thompson 12 months ago and Connolly now is that Thompson was in contract. Connolly was not. Timing is everything.