What margin do Gold Coast Suns need to beat Essendon by to set up elimination final clash against Fremantle?

Who will Fremantle’s elimination final opponent be? It all comes down to Wednesday night’s clash between Gold Coast and Essendon, and while the Suns are a near-unbackable favourite to win against an injury-hit Essendon side that’s lost 12 straight games, the margin of victory will determine their finishing position. SCROLL DOWN TO SEE THE CHART OF EVERY MARGIN Win by a reasonable margin, and the Suns will finish seventh and travel to Perth to face the sixth-placed Dockers. Win by a smaller margin, and it’ll be Hawthorn that makes the trip west to take on Freo - with Gold Coast finishing eighth and locking in a clash against GWS. That exact margin depends on how high-scoring Wednesday night’s match is, as we await to see if the Suns’ percentage will finish higher or lower than Hawthorn’s clip of 120.934 per cent. If Essendon score their season average of 67 points in the clash at People First Stadium, then Gold Coast will have to win by 29 points or more to lock in a clash with Freo. The lower the Bombers score below that, the lower the Suns’ target margin for sixth place drops to. Should the Bombers muster 56 points like they did in their most recent clash against Carlton, then Gold Coast need only to win by 26 or more to finish sixth. GOLD COAST EQUATION TO CLIMB TO 7TH & FACE FREO The Suns must first and foremost win or draw the match to seal their maiden AFL finals appearance. If they lose, the Western Bulldogs will finish eighth, and they’ll take on GWS to leave Hawthorn to face Freo. Gold Coast have never beaten the Dockers at Optus Stadium in three attempts, including a 20-point defeat against Justin Longmuir’s side in their most recent match-up in the west last year. The Hawks haven’t fared much better against Freo in WA in recent times. They’ve dropped their past five matches against Fremantle in Perth, and haven’t saluted against the Dockers at Optus since the stadium’s first year of operation in 2018. Dockers midfielder Hayden Young said the players were pumped to be back in another home final, regardless of their opponent. “I’m super excited that we get to go back and play in front of our home fans. That (2022 elimination final) was one the favourite games I’ve ever played,” he said. “We had 58,000 people. The following week we played at the MCG in front of 90,000 but I’ll take the 58,000 any day of the week over the 90,000 because it was that much louder. “It’s great for our fans. They deserve it. It’s been frustrating at times and they probably felt like last year we missed out when we should have been playing finals. They deserve it.”