Freo were coming off a win last week, but it was only against Essendon, and was at Subiaco. Prior to that, their form had been porr at best. Collingwood, meanwhile, had managed a win against last year's premiers, Sydney, in Sydney, but since then had gone about 3 weeks without a win. Despite all that, a win for Collingwood would cement them in the top four, and a win for Freo would be enough to get them back into the 8, so there was plenty to play for.

I am never shy about whingeing about the umpiring, but it really was the major talking poiint of the game. I have read and heard Collingwood fans who are prepared to claim that the umpires won the game for Freo by paying three or four dodgy free kicks to them after they staged for free kicks in their forward line. None of that is completely false, except that Collingwood received 2 or 3 times as many dodgy free kicks in their forward line, and still managed to lose.

In some ways, the start of the first quarter seemed to set the tone of the game. Collingwood dominated possession, but couldn't quite manage to score goals. Meanwhile Fremantle were playing what Les Murray would call good counter-attacking football. Collingwood kicked 4 points and one out on the full before Buckley managed their first goal. Meanwhile Freo had managed two straight goals, both kicked from around 50 metres out. One of them was a set shot for Farmer, which was frankly further than I thought he could kick.

The rest of the quarter was spoiled by the umpires. First they paid a random free kick to Scott Burns, who kicked a goal. Then Michael Johnson stuffed up a kick in the backline, and Tarrant scored a goal from the out on the full. The umpires paid another free kick for no apparent reason to Burns inside Collingwood's attacking 50 before the bounce, but forunately he missed. The quarter ended with Josh Carr sprinting into an open goal, 15 metres out and ... missing.

The second quarter started the way the first ended: the umpires giving plenty of advantage to Collingwood, and them failing to make the most of it. For some reason, the umpires decided to start paying free kicks to Fremantle, and Freo managed about 4 goals in a row. Two of these were bombs from Pavlich from well outside 50. These were about his first kicks for the game, as Jason Cloke was doing a very good job of stopping him. The second of these goals was the result of another free kick before the bounce down, and there was yet another of those free kicks paid later in the quarter after the Little Sausage had managed to finally take a mark and kick a goal, and had decided to celebrate by beating up innocent Freo defenders.

The highlight of the quarter for me though, came when Jeff Farmer took a mark outside 50, sold the dummy to Lockyer, went round him, had a bounce, and then kicked a banana kick goal from directly in front. After that it was a bit up and down. There was yet another free kick in Collingwood's forward line for no apparent reason went to Tarrant, who just managed to kick it out on the full. Finally, the second quarter finished much more positively than the first, with Headland on the run inside Freo's attacking 50 and kicking ... a goal!

The highlight of the third quarter came when Bell ran down Buckley from behind and had holding the ball paid against him. Bucks had a bit of a whinge about that, and the radio commentators claimed that Buckley actually got a handball away, but there is no spoiling that moment for me. The lowlight of the quarter was when Josh Fraser got a free kick about 50 metres out from his goals, and kicked an absolute shocker. The ball pitched well short, then bounced high. Rocca got a hand on it, but couldn't control it, and it bounced over him and McPharlin and between the big sticks to be paid as a goal.

There was an umpiring highlight in pretty much every quarter, and the highlight in last quarter was at least not a big deal, but it was pretty farcical. A Freo player, Josh Carr I think, soccered the ball of the ground. It hit a Collingwood player on the outside of his foot bounced off and up, out on the full. The umpire didn't notice that, which was fair enough, and paid a throw in. The Freo supporters booed and heckled him, so he decided to check with the coundary umpires. While they were chatting, a replay happened on the big screen, so everyone in the ground could see what happened. Everyone, that is, expcept for the three umpires who were too busy talking about it, and went with the throw in that they had decided on to start with.

Anyway, Fremantle start the last quarter three goals up. For the first half of the quarter the two teams basically traded goals, until Farmer kicked his 6th and Freo pulled away to a 25 point lead with about 10 minutes left. Freo basically held the Pies off until the last couple of minutes, when Didak and Tarrant scored a couple in a row to get the Pies over the century.

My final comment on the game is about the level of support for Freo. The official crowd for the day was just over 30,000. I would have guessed a little lower, but I haven't really got a feel for the size of the new improved MCG. Anyway, after the win, the Freo players wandered around to applaud their supporters, and I would estimate that at least 1/4 of the total crowd were still around for that. I grant you that maybe some of them were Collingwood fans still trying to get out, but even so, there was a pretty sizeable number of Freo fans at the game, which was a good experience.

Final Score : Fremantle 18.11-119 beat Collingwood 15.14-104

© 2006 timnfromoz timnfromoz@hotmail.com

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