I went to this game, but for some reason I didn't write it up straight after the game, so I may suffer a bit from the benefit of hindsight, but also from a few memeory lapses in detail.

This game was at the Telstra Dome, which was good, as the day was grey and threatening. Previously Footscray have always managed the Docklands Stadium pretty well, but for this game they managed to spoil their record. The whole harbour side of the third level was closed off for no apparent reason, which meant that I had to cram in high up on the city side. The closure wasn't at all well advertised, so I only found out about it when a security guard told me I couldn't go through.

The Bulldogs scored the first three goals before Freo were able to register one, but Freo came back into the game pretty well during the rest of the first quarter, and had a lead and quarter time. Sadly, Fremantle pretty much went missing for most of the second and third quarters, and so Footscray had a pretty handy lead of about five or six goals at three-quarter time.

Prior to the game there was a rumour about a virus having gone through the Bulldogs, which had interrupted their training during the week. That may be an excuse for the fact that Footscray seemed to run out of puff in the last quarter. Freo had plenty of opportunities, but failed to really grasp them. Medhurst was particularly wasteful, but the positive was the large number of opportunities that he created.

Overall, Fremantle were good when they were good, and pretty poor when the game was there to be won. The umpiring throughout the game was pretty hard to follow. In fairness though, I think the Bulldogs fans had about as many legitimate complaints as what I did, so it probably didn't have an impact.

Final Score : Fremantle ??.??-?? lost to Footscray ??.??-??

© 2006 timnfromoz timnfromoz@hotmail.com

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