Because of a fluke of weather and a very early Easter, the season kicked off less than week after we had been sweating through real summer weather, with temperatures in the high 30s here in Melbourne. Fortunately it had cooled down for this game, and it was only 24 or 25. Still, I chose to sit up in the Northern stand to keep out of the sun.

Before the game there was some discussion about whether or not Collingwood would have the experience to be able to deal with Fremantle. With Buckley and Clement both retiring over the summer, and some of their older players like Prestigiacomo and Burns not available. Freo, on the other hand, had a team packed full of more experienced players. The recruiting over summer was to add Mark Johnson and Kepler Bradley, with Rhys Palmer as pretty much the only young player added to the list.

Things didn't look too good for Freo early in the first quarter. Collingwood scored three of the first four goals, and the one goal that Freo did score came from a slightly dodgy free kick to Brother Matthew. To their credit, though Fremantle slowly worked their way back into the games. Three things caught my eye during this quarter. One was Peter Bell out-muscling Josh Fraser in a marking contest. The second was that Freo looked to be getting enough of the ball, but directing it to Pavlich, who seemed unable to take clean possession. The last one was a nice passage of play where Jeff Farmer came right down the ground to create an option, with the end result being a goal to Mark Johnson.

In the second quarter both sides seemed to have passaged of play where they actually looked like they new what they were doing. The umpires also did their best to get into the game. One highlight was calling for a bounce after Freo allegedly overstepped the square at a kick in from a behind. They also managed to gift a goal each way; paying a random free kick to Rocca about 25m from goal, but making up for it by paying two 50m penalties to Mundy to turn a free kick at the back end of the centre square into a certain goal.

Somehow the pace and talent seemed to drop off a bit during the thord quarter. Michael Johnson went with a 5m handball straight to three Pies in the centre, which ended up as a goal for Dale Thomas. In defence, Des Headland kicked straight to a Magpie on the 50m, but somehow they managed to keep the damage from that to a point. Medhurst managed to dodge around two defenders and then run into an open goal and ... hit the post. Mark Johnson delivered the ball straight to Medhurst in the centre square. Medders promptly fell over, but the Pies were still able to build a goal out of that too.

Collingwood had lead by 2 points at quarter time, 4 points at half time and 6 points at three-quarter time. The trend was pretty clear, and so it was obvious that Freo would end up losing by 26 points. For the first 10 minutes or so of the last quarter it was just all Collingwood. Sandilands looked like he was winning in the centre, but the ball kept going to the right of screen and the Magpies kicked goal after goal. One was a free kick paid to Dale Thomas for a tackle on Gilmore where Gilmore was apparently holding it. This was lauded as a great tackle, but he was only able to achieve it by jumping up and wrapping an arm around Gilmore's neck. Apparently I was the only one to see it that way.

In summary, it was all a bit disappointing for me. Freo had moments where they looked smooth, but there were planty of players who didn't seem to do much. As noted above, Sandilands seemed to win the ruck knocks, but the ball didn't end up going Fremantle's way. Both Carrs didn't do much. Mark Johnson is obviously not the answer, because Freo already has a slow ex-Essendon player who the umpires hate.

Farmer looked good to me, and most of the moments that actually excited me came from him. Pavlich looked OK, but all in all I would say that he was beaten by Brown, who is just 19 and was making his debut. Headland got a bit of the ball ad created some chances in the forward line, but didn't score a goal until late in the last quarter. McPharlin looked good when he went forward.

Final Score : Collingwood 16.15-111 beat Fremantle 13.7-85

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