There are four key questions for Fremantle in 2019.

What do they want?

What is possible?

What is realistic?

What is acceptable?

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The answer to the first question is easy. Fremantle have missed finals for three years in a row and watched West Coast play in all three series and claim the 2018 premiership in dramatic fashion.

The Dockers faithful want to be barracking in September — and not just for the team the Eagles are playing against.

Is this possible? Yes. If you split the AFL ladder into the teams that will almost certainly play finals, the ones that won’t and those in the middle, you have West Coast, Collingwood, Melbourne, Richmond and perhaps Essendon at the top and Gold Coast, Carlton and St Kilda at the bottom.

Finals are possible for the other 10. A few, chiefly Greater Western Sydney, Adelaide and Hawthorn, need considerably less luck than Fremantle to get there. But we really aren’t sure what to make of the rest any more than we know what to make of the Dockers.

They have moved to solve a major problem with the recruitment of Jesse Hogan and Rory Lobb.

Having lacked viable targets to aim at in 2018, Fremantle midfielders will this year have proven talls to aim at, enabling their small forwards to get to work at ground level.

They have an emerging back line. Joel Hamling is accomplished, Alex Pearce is impressive, while Luke Ryan climbed into the top five in the club’s best and fairest last year. Add Nathan Wilson and the possibility that the return of Griffin Logue from injury creates, the experience that Reece Conca provides and the potential Taylin Duman has and Fremantle’s back half can hold up if those in front of them do.

Camera Icon Dockers half-back Nathan Wilson. Credit: AFL Media, Michael Willson Camera Icon Fremantle key defender Alex Pearce. Credit: The Sunday Times, Daniel Wilkins

What is realistic? Here we come to the big question. The Dockers are going to be vulnerable in the midfield.

Sean Darcy is set to succeed Aaron Sandilands as lead ruckman, getting Harley Bennell fit and firing is proving problematic, Connor Blakely will miss the first month after a pre-season hamstring injury, Stephen Hill has a battle with an ongoing quad problem and Lachie Neale now calls Brisbane home.

A fit Nat Fyfe is an absolute must. The Dockers need Ed Langdon to continue to improve as he did last year and Darcy Tucker has to mirror Langdon’s leap forward.

Above all, they need their second-year top-10 draft picks Adam Cerra and Andrew Brayshaw to play older than they are, and 33-year-old veteran David Mundy to play younger than he is.

These things are all possible, but perhaps not likely to run the entire 51/2 months of a home-and-away season.

So what is acceptable? The Dockers won eight games last year, which is neither great nor catastrophic. What hurt Ross Lyon was that for the second year in a row there were too many big losses when manpower got thin.

Nine of Fremantle’s 14 defeats were by 50 points or more, culminating in the 133-point flogging by Geelong in round 22.

It won’t be a disaster if the Dockers miss the top eight, but they should be aiming to stay in contention deep into the season.

Ten wins would be a pass mark. Anything more than that is going to depend on the health and form of their midfield.

Prediction: 8th to 13th