Mark Stone - Fremantle Dockers Assistant Coach in 2013 Grand Final run (23.09.2026)

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Mark Duffield (1:02)

Ladies WA for WA.

SPEAKER_2 (1:05)

This is Mornings with Mark Duffield on SEMWA.

SPEAKER_4 (1:10)

Football has done Lockie Neal wrong. We'll look back one day and wonder if this wasn't all spectacularly unfair. Neal alongside Carl Dittrich and Neville Crowe and Phil Karman, hitmen of the era.

The last hope is that it gets corrected at appeal.

Mark Duffield (1:30)

Yeah, no, sorry. I just can't.

People say, I 100% disagree with you. Well, I 100% disagree with Jared. You either have rules or you don't. And as I said during the editorial off the top of the show, you can't just not pay the holding the ball for Jarman Impey because it's the last minute of a preliminary final and it's a big moment. And you can't just ignore the fact that Lockie Neal came up behind Jack Ginnivan and punched him in the stomach. And that one of the AFL senior executives in the footy department, Greg Swann, has declared that if you punch someone in the stomach, you're going to get a week. You can't just ignore that because it's a grand final. That might be hard on Lockie, but Lockie is the bloke who did it.

There you go. Got that off my chest. My next guest was a member of the coaching panel the last time that Fremantle played in a grand final in 2013 Of course, that is the Ross Lyon team that went down by 15 points to Hawthorne. Mark Stone, the just departed coach of the Perth Football Club joins us. Stoney, welcome.

Mark Stone (2:37)

Yeah, thanks Duff. Good morning to you.

Mark Duffield (2:39)

And let's say off the top, we're not going to talk about the Perth Football Club. That is an issue for another day. We're going to talk about 2013 and your memories and experiences in that grand final. How clear is your memory of that day?

Mark Stone (2:55)

Reasonably clear, yeah. It's a while back now, but there's a lot of parts and moments of it that are pretty clear. Yeah, overall, it was a pretty good experience apart from the flattening experience at the end of it.

Mark Duffield (3:10)

What was your coaching role on that panel with Ross Stoney?

Mark Stone (3:15)

I was stoppages and midfield. And I think from memory, Brett Kirk was with me as well. He was doing midfield and spread.

Yeah, and there was a few other coaches. Obviously, Peter Schumich, Michael Pryor and a few others. Yeah.

Mark Duffield (3:29)

Wouldn't it have been a bad group to be bossing around? Aaron Sanderland's, Rucking, Nathan Fife, David Mundy, Michael Barlow, Stephen Hill at ground level. That would have been quite a nice group.

Mark Stone (3:42)

Yeah, it was a tremendous group of guys to coach. And Ryan Crowley in there as well, Nick Subin, Stephen Hill and Tendai Mazunga on the wings. Brilliant group of guys. Really enjoyed every minute of it.

And they did a pretty good job on the day. And it was interesting you mentioned that part of it, Duff, because leading into that game all week, the talk was about Ryan Crowley tagging Sam Mitchell.

And it was almost like everyone knew it was going to happen before the game even started. And I remember saying to Ross at one point, and I don't want to sound like the assistant coach in hindsight, because we've all got better views in hindsight, haven't we? But I did say to Ross at one point, why don't we send him to Burgoyne and do something different? Because they're expecting Mitchell to get tagged, so they'll plan for that. And Ross just, he didn't want to do it. He had his mind set on Mitchell, which is fine, that's his call. But they sent Mitchell into all of what they thought our hit zones were, at centre bounce and around the ground stoppage, and got a bit of an advantage that way. So it was a bit of a battle to try and wrestle that back in our favour in the second half. But it was interesting to think back on that.