So far this season, Fremantle have been pretty average. They have managed just the one win, and that was against West Coast, who have also only won the one game. Meanwhile Geelong are the reigning premiers, and haven't lost a game so far this season. Unsurprisingly, even though the game was played at Subiaco, the bookies were offering 4:1 and higher odds on a Freo win.

Pre-game there was an ANZAC Day ceremony, since the AFL have apparently decided that it's OK for Collingwood and Essendon to share the day with other clubs, as long as they don't do it in Melbourne. Sadly, North Melbourne, who I remember as Freo's traditional rivals for the Len Hall game on ANZAC Day weren't included, but at least Fremantle were allowed to have a little bit of tradition.

The first quarter was some of the best and most enjopyable football I have seen Fremantle play in a long while. They ran, they moved the ball forwards, they even won most of the breaks out of the centre. Pavlich kicked two, and Solomon got one, and there were a few missed opportunities along the way. Geelong could only manage one goal from the quarter, and that only eventuated after a free kick paid in the centre.

At quarter time Dennis informed me that the breeze was blowing from the east, and that meant that the Dockers had had the benefit of it in the first quarter. I won't say that Freo proved Den wrong, but the first couple of goals of the quarter came from kicks from outside the 50m line, and not much further in Farmer got one from a set shot at the 50m line as well. In all, Freo put on the first 4 goals of the second quarter, and got out to a 39 point lead.

I always had the feeling that it couldn't last, and it didn't. The turning point was when a free kick was paid to Ablett before the bounce. It was unclear exactly what Josh Carr did to him, but the umpire didn't like it, and it was obviously enough to knock Ablett off his feet for ... oh seconds, until the kick was paid. That free ended up with a Geelong goal, and from there until half time it was pretty much all Geelong. Freo had been tough at it up until that point, and between that decision and a few others it was clear the umpires had decided that was wrong. It put Fremantle off their defensive game plan, and the Cats were able to kick 6 goals in about 9 minutes of actual game time. So after a quarter and a half of marvellous football, by half time Freo were left with just a 2 point lead.

So in the third quarter Freo had to do it all again. Perhaps the breeze was a factor after all, because Fremantle had it for the third, and they were able to open up a four goal lead. Ir perhaps it was just Fremantle playing good football, because they helf Geelong goalless for the whole quarter. The free flowing game from the first quarter was gone, but they were able to manufacture the goals anyway, which I found quite encouraging.

The last quarter was almost the reverse of the third. Geelong scored the first 5 goals of the quarter, while Freo struggled to score at all, let alone a goal. The forward line that had looked very good early in the game was again struggling to get the ball. The Cats crept out to an 8 point lead, before Pav finally got his hands on it, and kicked his fifth with about 4 minutes left.

In the dying stages it came down to a Pavlich set shot on goal with about 40 seconds to go. He was kicking from the pocket, about 45 metres out. A goal would probably have won it for Freo. He got the distance with no problems, but there was just enough breeze to push the kick into the goal post. Fremantle kept the pressure on after that, and there was a minor controversy after Geelong kicked the ball out on the full. Murphy grabbed the ball from where it finished up, but the umpire wanted the kick taken from where the ball went out - closer to the Fremantle goal. While that was being sorted out, about 10 seconds ticked off the clock. It arguably didn't matter, since the kick ended up being marked by the Geelong defense who were easily able to soak up the time remaining, whether it was 5 seconds or 15 seconds.

I have read plenty of comments in the past that suggested that Sandilands was a great tap ruckman, but that he didn't do enough other things to ever be a great footballer. And I have been incli8ned to go along with that. Tonight he showed that he is capable of being the full package. He took marks at full forward and at full back, which I haven't seen him do enough in the past. He also solved the problem that the Freo midfield don't get enough advantage from the huge number of taps he wins by doing a fair chunk of his own roving as well.

I firmly believe that there was a double standard with the umpiring in this game. For some reason, they didn't like Crowley, but it extended to the whole Fremantle team. In the first quarter there was a 50 paid against Crowley for backchatting the umpire. The TV then showed us three separate incidentd where Milburn argued calls about the unpiring, and suffered no penalty. In fairness to Milburn, a couple of the calls were soft, but that's neither here nor there. Then in the loast quarter a deliberate out of bounds was paid against Crowley after he grubbered a kick about 30 metres up field on the wing. When a Geelong player did exactly the same thing later in the quarter, there was no penalty. But the most glaring example was a passage of play where McManus was visibly grabbed around the throat. That wasn't a free kick, but when he picked himself up and tackled the Geelong player that was paid as a push in the back.

Final Score : Fremantle 13.10-88 lost to Geelong 13.11-89

© 2008 timnfromoz timnfromoz@hotmail.com

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