Fremantle hope talks with AFL can avert Simonds Stadium final Fremantle president Steve Harris Source: PerthNow FREMANTLE officials hope talks with AFL bosses in recent days will avert a first-week trip to Simonds Stadium but have said the club is an "anywhere, anytime" team. Speaking on Melbourne radio on Saturday, president Steve Harris said his club only found out about a potential qualifying final at Geelong's home ground via a radio report on Thursday morning. He said a possible trip to Simonds, widely mooted by league officials in recent days, was "not a done deal" with Harris saying the club expecting a decision to be made following Fremantle and Geelong's round 23 matches on Saturday. There has been speculation of a 3.40pm final at Simonds Stadium next Saturday should Geelong finish second and Fremantle third. But the Freo boss reiterated his thoughts from earlier in the week when he said for the sake of fans of both teams, a final at Simonds didn't make sense. "We're not concerned about travelling, I think we're on record as saying we're an anywhere, any team, anytime club," Harris told SEN on Saturday. It's not the players travelling we're concerned about - it's the, let's call it strange, facet of perhaps locking out 10-20,000 Fremantle and Geelong supporters who want to see finals football because the stadium has a capacity of 32,500. Harris said he hoped the club's arguments had been well received in recent days. "Steve Rosich, our CEO, has been dealing with Andrew (Demetriou) and the AFL executive, I've been dealing with Mike Fitzpatrick," he said. We think we've got a really strong argument (for having the match played at Etihad Stadium). Harris said he had "no idea" how many Dockers fans he expected to travel east for a potential final against the Cats, but the Dockers now boasted a larger following given it was a top-four team. He did raise the difficultly in getting a flight from Perth later in the week. The outcry from the west over 'Victorian conspiracy' can be heard loud and clear over the AFL attempts to play finals match in Geelong. Earlier, Geelong chief executive Brian Cook said if the AFL did schedule the match at Simonds it would be one of the biggest things ever for the club. He didn't expect the Cats to find out if they would host the match for a couple of days but thought Geelong had grounds to play in their home town. The simple reason ... if we get beaten today we go to Fremantle. We got to Perth and play at Fremantle's home ground," Cook said. They finish second, we finish third ... if that happens we go there (so) it's called equality, really. Then the argument that you would fit more people into Etihad, which is probably around 40,000, is a reasonable argument but the problem with that argument is, we don't think they'll get 40,000, we think they'll get 30,000. Last year there was 43,000 at the MCG, of which was made up of the finals series ticket patrons. Cook said with tickets to club members to go on sale on Monday morning, he would expect Fremantle members - who have the same access to tickets as Cats members - to purchase around 5,000 or 6,000 tickets at the 33,000-capacity venue.