Goals – Gold Coast Suns: Raines 2 Kolodjashnij Miller Rischitelli Lemmens. Fremantle: Fyfe 2 Neale Crozier Hannath Suban.
Best – Gold Coast Suns: Rischitelli Saad Kolodjashnij McKenzie Harbrow Matera. Fremantle: Fyfe Sandilands McPharlin Mundy Neale Sutcliffe.
Injuries – Gold Coast Suns: Stanley.
Umpires: Fisher Rosebury O'Gorman.

Truly, there are no certainties in football. If you didn't see this game, and took a look at the scoreboard after the fact, you might have thought this was a reprise of those St Kilda teams that coach Ross Lyon took so close to dual premiership glory: defence-oriented, doing enough to keep the opposition at arm's length, dour, but ruthlessly effective.

Surely, though, not against a barely half-strength Gold Coast Suns. On paper at least, this game against the ladder's top and bottom teams looked an even bigger mismatch than last week's thoroughly tedious affair between the Suns and Swans. Instead the paltry crowd was almost treated to a football miracle.

How was this possible? The Fremantle Dockers dominated pretty much every statistical category, with predictable advantages in clearances (Aaron Sandilands again broke his, and the league's record for hitouts, with 71) and contested possession. Yet, at three-quarter time, they had just five goals on the board.

The Suns, chastened by ill-discipline, playing almost their second 22, just wouldn't go away. Wet, slippery conditions suited them. They tackled. They niggled. A good quarter turned into a good half, then a very creditable three quarters, even after Nat Fyfe, who was rarely given a breather, threatened to steal the game himself.

Fyfe briefly broke the game open with two goals early in the third quarter, after he was shifted forward. He'd had a torrid game in the centre, where he was prevented from dictating the play by a fierce Michael Rischitelli, but the Suns couldn't find a defender to match up on him.

From there, though, the Dockers couldn't find the goal – any goal – that would give them the break they needed. They looked, frankly, perfectly ordinary: a middling team having a bad day. It will be a very relieved Lyon and his team travelling back to Perth with the four points.

It took a last-minute loss of composure to cost the Suns what would surely have been, given their personnel and position, one of the all-time great upsets in modern football, when tyro defender Henry Schade ducked his head into Fremantle substitute Nick Suban's tackle in the goal square. Tom Lynch got the quick reply, but too late.

For most of that final quarter, though, it was the Suns who controlled the tempo and terms of the game. After young Sean Lemmens curled in a ripper on his right foot to bring the margin back to just two points, it was the Dockers who were forced to shut the game down. Their greater run and experience carrying the day.

But across the board, Suns coach Rodney Eade couldn't have been more pleased with the effort of his players. Clearly, they had a plan, and they stuck to it to the last. In both attitude and execution, this is the match he will hope his side has set a new standard for itself.

Their intent was clear when Rischitelli stopped Fyfe cold in a tackle seven minutes in; not long after, Lynch took Fyfe to the turf again and gave him a fairly unsubtle round-arm to go on with. No damage was done, but the message got through, even if it was never going to curtail a player of Fyfe's quality.

A few Suns players who needed to perform played like they owed their club. Brandon Matera didn't get much of the ball, but he tackled like a man who knew his career depended on it. Trent McKenzie was given the job on Matthew Pavlich, and while this was no day for big men, he did well to quell the champion's influence.

Then there were the new arrivals. Adam Saad was again excellent off half back, quick and brave. Touk Miller's shot for goal early in the third quarter was coldly composed, and dead straight. "Two Metre" Peter Wright gives every indication he's going to be around for a long time. Kade Kolodjashnij, in his second year, is growing up fast.

It's still a long, long way back to football respectability for the Suns. But they'll get some players back after the bye – probably Gary Ablett, certainly Steven May, and shortly afterwards David Swallow and Rory Thompson. But it's the turnaround in competitiveness that will ultimately count for more than the names on the park.