Fremantle came into this game in 14th spot, with just one win for the season, but last week they ran the reigning premiers and so far undefeated Geelong to within one point. Meanwhile Melbourne hadn't won a game at all, and in all honesty hadn't really looked like they would. There were only two catches for Freo, or possibly three if I am cruel. The first catch was that this game was in Melbourne, the second catch was that Grover and Hayden were both out injured, and JCarr was suspended. The third one that I am still making up my mind on is that Fremantle is currently being coached by Mark Harvey, who always impresses with his toughness, but not his intelligence.

Being 14th against 16th, there were worries that the crowd would be dismal. During the week, Melbourne pulled out all the stops to try and get their members to come along. But, while I am handing out backhanders, their matchday organisation was poor. Every other time I have been to the MCG there have been announcements outside the ground telling me where to go. Not for Melbourne though. And Melbourne did the thing that always annoys me - they shut up the upper levels in order to artifically squeeze us into a limited area.

The first quarter went pretty much to the script. Fremantle did almost all of the attacking, and despite the umpires' propensity to pay soft free kicks (to both sides) Fremantle were able to open an early lead, and were doing it easily. Tarrant kicked two goals for the quarter, and was probably the most reliable shot for goal. Pavlich kicked three consecutive points before marking less than 20 metres out and finally opening his account. At quarter time Freo were 27 points up, and Pavlich was level with Melbourne.

The second quarter was not too different from the first. Melbourne improved a little, but didn't really make any inroad on the scoreboard. They did manage to open up a hand lead over Pavlich though, but Tarrant looked like challenging them for a while. The highlight of the quarter for me was a great effort by Sandlilands out on the wing who just kept chasing, and ran a good 50 metres to tackle down a Melbourne player. He was rewarded with the free kick, which wound up with Mundy for a goal.

At half time Fremantle were 51 points up, and the radio commentators were pointing out that it was all very well for Melbourne to ask the fans to make an effort for the club, but it was hard to do when it didn't look like the players were prepared to do the same. Certainly around me, the biggest levels of excitement for the day came with some marks in the Auskick.

Presumably the coach had a word with the players at half time, because Melbourne looked a lot more threatening in the third quarter. They kicked the first 4 goals of the quarter, to give themselves a bit of a sniff. Fremantle finally woke up, and put some pressure on, but could only score 4 successive points. Then Davey kicked Melbourne's 5th for the quarter, and there was just a hint that they thought they could win. Finally Fremantle responded. Or rather Pavlich did. He marked and goaled, then moved himself into the centre for the next bounce, and kicked another one from inside the centre square.

That left Freo 32 points up at three-quarter time. Surely it would be enough? As it turned out, no it wasn't. Melbourne kicked the first 4 goals of the quarter, and seemed to be winning the ball out of the centre pretty easily now. Finally Sandliands got a big fist forward, which ended up with a goal to Farmer. Freo held up the charge for a while, with a goal each way, but the Wonaeamirri kicked two goals in a minute or two, and Melbourne had the lead. Fremantle finally woke up and made some forays forward. The last of these was a mark to Pavlich with about a minute to go. It was already past the 30th minute, so Pav didn't realise there was still time. As a result he rushed the shot, and it finished up as a point. In the end Melbourne scored 9.2 in the last quarter, to Freo's 2.6.

I would like to say that I got something out of this game, but really I didn't. Fremantle got on top in the first half because they were playing the better football, but it really wasn't great football even then. Really it was more that Melbourne were so bad that you could almost count on them handing the ball back to Fremantle fairly quickly. And after half time, really the only moments that got me vaguely excited were the goals to Pavlich at the end of the third quarter. The last quarter just felt like a procession of goals to Melbourne. If I was a bigger man I could almost have enjoyed Robertson and Wonaeamirri, but I'm not, so there was really nothing to enjoy there.

A look at the final scoreboard shows that it wasn't all bad. Freo had more scoring shots than Melbourne, they just didn't have the accuracy. But as the saying goes, bad kicking is bad football.

Final Score : Melbourne 17.17-119 defeated Fremantle 15.23-113

© 2008 timnfromoz timnfromoz@hotmail.com

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