Fremantle got to play on the MCG for a change. Apparently this was the first game they got to play at the MCG in over two years, and over a third of the team had never played there before. The MCG is gradually becoming less and less crowd-friendly, and more and more like the other grounds in Victoria. Maybe I just wound up in the wrong section of the ground, but where once a general admission ticket would have left me free to sit pretty much anywhere, for this game it was a case of being able to sit anywhere we likes, as long as it wasn't too close to the ground, because all the seats clsoer to the ground were "reserved". Who those seats were reserved for, I'll never know, since they stayed empty for the duration of the game.

Richmond managed to break a losing streak of 9 games with a win last week, so the real question was: Would they carry over their good form from that, or would they, like Freo at about this time last year, suffer from a victory hangover? The other good news from last week was that Melbourne gave Richmond a 41 point head start early in the final quarter, and still only lost by a point, so, no matter how bad things got, there was no reason to ever give up.

Things did start pretty poorly from a Freo point of view. Richmond lined up with a pretty open forward line, with Stafford opposed by Leigh Brown, Richo opposed by Pav, and Ray Hall opposed by Luke McPharlin and nobody much else inside the forward 50. Richmond got a few centre breaks and bombed the ball into that set up where, thanks to some reasonable marking and some dodgy umpiring, Stafford and Richo were able to have some shots on goal. Thankfully, Richo's poor kicking kept Freo from being completely blown away.

At the start of the final quarter, Connolly decided to try something different. Pavlich went into the centre of the ground, to play as a ruck rover, and Shane got swung onto Richo. Parker had spent the earlier part of the afternoon minding Rodan and Krakouer, so it was a bit of a change in role for him. We'll neve know how it would have worked, as Parker got knocked out a few minutes into the quarter, which sparked Richo to cut lose, and the Tigers scored 4 or 5 goals ina row to get out to the magic number of 41 points ahead. Freo rallied and kicked the next 3 goals of the game, before Longmuir missed a reasonably easy shot for goal, and the Richmond steamroller started up again.

Both Pavlich and Longmuir had absolute shockers. Pavlich spent most of the day playing on Richardson. Richardson kicked 6 for the game (although two of those came in the few minutes that Croad spent playing on him) but that fact by itself probably understates just how bad Pavlich was. Pavlich also managed turnovers that directly led to another 3 Richmond goals. Longmuir spent most of the day in the forward line, as you would expect. He wasn't completely useless, he managed to get his hand on the ball, but his return for the day was 3 points and one out on the full, which just isn't enough for a guy who seems to only play full forward. He rotated down into the backline for a bit during the third quarter, but that just meant that Richo was able to make Pavlich AND Longmuir look silly at the same time.

Of course Freo would have won if Parker hadn't had to be stretchered off in the last quarter. Funny thing is that, in the Richmond-Freo game a couple of years ago Koops did something very similar to Torney, and got a two week suspension for it. Hall hasn't even been reported. And don't even get me started on Ty Zantuck cleaning up James Walker with his elbow, and the umpire not even paying a free kick. Zantuck has been reported on video evidence, which makes the umpire's decision not to pay a free kick even stranger. And of course, in the context of Richo getting a number of free kicks paid to him for wrestling with Pavlich, the fact that a Freo player could have his head knocked off and still nto get paid a free kick certainly didn't sit well. Still, I'll probably get over that game in a couple of weeks - just in time for the Essendon game in fact.

Final Score : Richmond 18.14-122 beat Fremantle 10.12-72.

© 2002 timnfromoz timnfromoz@hotmail.com

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