This hammer-and-tongs preliminary final became a milestone for both clubs, a threshold for Hawthorn, a watershed for Fremantle. For the Hawks, victory secured entry to their fourth grand final in a row and a chance to make it a trio of premierships, and neither West Coast nor North Melbourne, quartered elsewhere in Perth, would have much liked what they saw. The Hawks were playing their third match of the finals series, and on their second long road trip, and momentarily in the last quarter, it looked as if it was an air-bridge too far. But they came again. Hawthorn's way and Alastair Clarkson's work.

For the Dockers and Ross Lyon, defeat became another case of so-near-and-yet-so-far. It ought be the title of the of the autobiography Lyon will never write. This year, he held all the aces – minor premiership, home final, plenty of rest, his patent hustling, hassling game about to be validated. But it wasn't, and as this Dockers team begins to peep over the top of the hill, it might never be. When it matters, the record says Lyon's way does not work. As it says on every highway signboard here this weekend, this was a case of double demerit points.

It is amazing to think that so much had hung on one game, but it did. That is what finals do; they finalise. For the Hawks, this victory had overtones of their legendary win over minor premiers West Coast on this ground in a qualifying final in 1991, the first final played outside Victoria. From there, they won the premiership, the last of one great Hawthorn era. Now they set the seal on another. They are the club of frontiers.

Fremantle set the tone for this match, one minute scintillating, the next silly, the package mercurial. Under Lyon, it has often been so. They kicked early goals and gave away needless early off-the-ball penalties that led to Hawthorn goals, six of them in a row that ultimately proved insurmountable. The temper of the game would remain tetchy and testy all night.

But in eight years at, or near, the top, the Hawks have seen it all before, heard it all before, felt it all before, including the backhanders. They waited out the storm, on both sides of the fence (which at least twice manifested in violence), gathered themselves up and established a lead they would never relinquish. That makes it sound like a cake-walk; it was not.

At two goals, the lead seemed retrievable. At three and then four and a bit, it did not. But as heavy legs took their toll at the start of the last quarter, and the margin narrowed to nine points, even Clarkson fretted. "Goodness knows what would have happened if they had got in front," he said "It would have been like trying to stop a steam train."

But one of Hawthorn's lesser sung virtues is that they are the second-best defensive team in the competition this season, behind only Fremantle, who are far from the second-best attacking team behind the Hawks. Hawthorn did what champions do, found something where there was nothing, other than the memory of so many other heroic performances. Four goals in a rush, including two Cyril Rioli specials, rang down the curtain. Eleven Hawthorn goals might have been within the Dockers' range, 15 never would be.

Afterwards, Lyon detailed all the ways the Dockers could have won and should have won, and didn't, but always he came back to the same place: "They're a great team." If he said it once, he said it half a dozen times. But it did help the Dockers that Brownlow favourite Nat Fyfe turned into the crooked old man trying to run the crooked mile. Clarkson also returned over and over to the same place, literally, Subiaco oval, and a thumping defeat at the hands of West Coast a fortnight ago. It was not the sort of note on which this Hawthorn team was prepared to leave behind an era; they are too proud for that.

Much of this match was played in the middle of this long, skinny ground, and in a state of bumptious neutral. Belying the scoreboard, it came down to fine margins and fleeting moments. Long goals for Hawthorn from Jarryd Roughead on the second-term siren and Matt Suckling after it, stood in contrast with misses at crucial by Chris Mayne and ruckman Jonathon Griffin for Fremantle.

Notoriously, the Dockers labour to kick their goals and the Hawks only ever need slivers of space and time. When the match reached its denouement, a couple of dropped marks gave Rioli the merest glimpse he only ever needs. It left Lyon torn. All players make mistakes, he said, but the here and now was killing, "We're not playing tiddlywinks," he said, "we're trying to get to an AFL grand final."

For Fremantle, the match became like the night's horizon, with a rosy glow to begin, but then all became blackness. At midnight, the Hawks jetted off into that blackness, and so launched yet another grand final week.