Former Collingwood premiership hero Mason Cox is preparing to have a great impact at Fremantle, as the Dockers gear up to launch their 2026 campaign against Geelong this Saturday.
At 34, the 211cm American has traded the black and white stripes for Freo purple, arriving at a club still using the “fire in the belly” that has lingered from a heartbreaking one-point elimination final loss to the Gold Coast Suns last year.
For Cox, the shift from Melbourne to Perth after 11 years at the Magpies has been as much a cultural adjustment as a professional one.
Walking into Cockburn, Cox quickly realised that the scrutiny in a two-team town is a different beast entirely.
“One thing I’ve come over here and realised… there’s a magnifying glass on the two teams that are here,” Cox said on the Red Time podcast. “The word expectation — oh my gosh, I have not heard that word more in my life in the last three months.”
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However, the veteran is keen to shift the narrative for a list where the average age is just 24.2 — a full decade younger than himself.
“We’re still a young team, and everyone’s striving for success, but I think we need to change the wording to aspirations rather than expectations,” Cox said. “If you aspire to do something, it’s different… you’re not sitting there in a negative mindset, whereas with expectation it can be a massive letdown.”
Despite the move, Cox sees striking parallels between his old home and his new one. Having spent more than a decade at Collingwood, he noted that the media intensity in WA does feels familiar.
“It’s a weird thing in WA, reading The West Australian… playing for a club like Collingwood, it’s very similar, you don’t pick up the paper and not see something about Collingwood every day,” he said. “There are little things that are quite similar, but overall not too much difference, just different colours.”
His introduction to the club was uniquely Australian. “I walked in, the first thing that happened was Jordan Clark got me up on the cricket… a few stumps there, one bowl, so that was a nice little intro to the club about five steps from the front door,” Cox laughed.
While Cox brings premiership experience and a “different perspective” to the coaching staff and players, he has been left in awe by some the raw talent on the Fremantle list during the preseason.
“Shai Bolton is a freak, he’s such a good athlete,” Cox said of the former Tiger. He also flagged Hayden Young as a player to watch and described fellow tall Luke Jackson as an “absolute unicorn and funny fella”.
According to Cox, the scars of 2025 are serving as a powerful motivator for the group heading into Round 1.
“Obviously last year, the way it finished, there’s a little bit extra fire in the belly to try and do something more than that,” Cox said. “It was a bit of a sad ending for the club last year, so everyone wants to prove themselves and go further.”
Fremantle fans won’t have to wait long to see if “aspirations” can turn into reality, as the Dockers travel to GMHBA Stadium this Saturday to get their 2026 campaign underway.
