Sport / Fremantle, WA

Freo storm into grand final after SCG thriller, but star of the show calls his goal ‘a fluke’

The Sydney Morning Herald Roy Ward, Russell Bennett, Jonathan Drennan

18 Sept 2026 18:30 AEST Summary

Sport AFL

Changed after publishing · 5 edits

19 Sept 2026 09:17 AEST the headline was changed: ~~Dockers~~ Freo storm into grand final after SCG thriller, but star of the show calls his goal ‘a fluke’
19 Sept 2026 03:16 AEST the headline was changed: ~~Purple pain: Swans left heartbroken in front of 45,000 at the SCG as~~ Dockers storm ~~home~~into grand final after SCG thriller, but star of the show calls his goal ‘a fluke’
19 Sept 2026 02:16 AEST the headline was changed: Purple pain: Swans left heartbroken in front of 45,000 at the SCG as Dockers storm home~~Pearce says dreams won’t help Dockers win flag~~
19 Sept 2026 00:47 AEST the headline was changed: ~~AFL LIVE: Freo, heave-ho:~~ Purple pain: Swans left heartbroken in front of 45,000 at the SCG as Dockers storm ~~into grand final~~home; Pearce says dreams won’t help Dockers win flag
18 Sept 2026 23:02 AEST the headline was changed: AFL LIVE: ~~Dockers roar back, but~~ Freo, heave-ho: Swans ~~answer emphatically with a fairytale~~ left heartbroken in front of 45,000 at the SCG as Dockers storm into grand final~~berth within their grasp~~

Outlets edit stories after they go out, usually without saying so. We keep what we saw the first time.

Show what we removed

From the report

The Swans and Dockers take to the SCG in a preliminary final with the winner earning a place in next Saturday’s AFL grand final.

This is a summary. The indicators are not. The scores were measured over this summary alone, which is less of the article than we would like and makes them less certain.

Indicators

Niral Score 5.2 mundaneloaded

None in this text. Words that carry a fact and quoted words are not counted.

final3grand2

Sourcing 42 unattributednamed sources Mood 55.2 sorrowjoyful

6 read zero: sentiment, political diction, generational, gender, jingoistic, religious

Sentiment 0 hostilefavourable Political diction 0 left-codedright-coded Generational 0 harder on the oldharder on the young Gender 0 no gendered framingframing throughout Jingoistic 0 reports to a readerwrites from a camp Religious 0 not invokedovert

Measurements of how this article is written, not of whether it is correct. How each one is measured.

Measured on The Sydney Morning Herald’s report as filed, which is all we may publish of this one.

How this outlet filed it, and how we rewrote it

No other newsroom we read has filed on this event, so there is nothing to compare it with yet.

Also covered by The Age. We hold only their summary of it, not the report, so there is nothing of theirs to measure here.

Outlet	Niral Score
The Sydney Morning Heraldas they published this story	5.2

How did this read?

Readers

Comments

Nothing here yet.

Questions

Readers can ask a question about this story here. Questions and answers are for subscribers. Sign in to read them.

Comments are read before they appear where anything in them needs a person to look. Nothing posted here is ever deleted; a comment taken down keeps its text and the reason, so the decision can be looked at again. How this works

Report a problem with these scores or this rewrite — it goes straight into the public ledger.

The same event elsewhere

1 other outlet filed this story. The scoreboard above is what they did differently.

The Age Freo storm into grand final after SCG thriller, but star of the show calls his goal ‘a fluke’ Niral 5.2 political 0