The sun was shining, the northerly was blowing, so it was quite a pleasant warm day for me to make a pilgrimage to the 'G to see Freo play Richmond. My preferred spot for watching the footy used to be in the stand in the northeast corner of the ground (whatever that was called) but that wasn't there this time round. Its currently a construction site where they are building a new stand to be ready for the Commonwealth Games next year. Instead I wandered around a bit further and ended up in the top level of the Southern Stand. If I read the signage right, I think I sat pretty close to where Bay 13.

Unfortunately the only coverage of the game on the radio was on 3AW, so I was forced to endure Rex. The one thing that the radio was able to inform me of was that Polak, Headland and Carr, M. were all late withdrawals from the team. It certainly didn't augur well. Apparently Carr had come down with some sort of virus, and rumour has it that some of the players who did play were affected by it as well. In some ways I hope thats the case. When the game started, Freo played Parker on Richo, which has worked before, but I'm guessing that if Polak had played, he would have got Richo. And at the other end Gaspar was marking Medhurst. I think it was fair to say that Freo were lacking quality talls on the day.

The first quarter of the game wasn't too bad, from my perspective. Pavlich took a good strong mark, Jeff Farmer kicked a goal on the run, and Freo had as many advances inside 50 as Richmond did. The only catch was that Freo were kicking to the Punt Rd end, which was where the gap in the stands was, and that seemed to be screwing up their kicking on goal.

But somewhere along the line the wheels started to fall off. Simmonds played a great quarter and capped it off with a goal right on quarter time. Dodd got his knee crushed under a tackle and got stretchered off. Even the ball was bouncing Richmond's way, with a long bomb bouncing and turning back into the goals for Richmond's 4th goal. Freo went into quarter time 4 goals down, but I hadn't lost hope.

The second quarter was probably about as good as it got for Freo. They got within 11 points at one stage, and outscored Richmond for the quarter. A couple of the young blokes who had come in at the last minute, Mark Johnson and Ryan Murphy scored goals.

At half time the Richmond little league held Freo completely scoreless. It wasn't a good sign for the third quarter. Fremantle's only score for the quarter was a point to Bell. I usually work on the theory that I will be happy seeing Freo play as long as I see a goal each quarter, so I wasn't able to leave the ground a happy camper.

They got beaten in the midfield, the forward line looked suspect, and eventually the cracks started to show in defense as well. Richo scored 4 for the quarter to give himself personally a handy one goal lead over the entire Freo team. Shane tried hard to hold him (literally sometimes) but the ball just came in so often that even Richo couldn't muck it up every time. By three-quarter time, Freo were 57 points down and it was all over.

Freo did manage to kick a goal in the final quarter. In fact they had a goal on the board before the first minute was over, but after that there was about 20 minutes of Richmond peppering the goals. Fortunately, Richmond only managed 1.7 for the quarter, otherwise things would have looked a lot worse for Freo.

The 3AW commentary team made a big deal about how indirect Freo were all day. And they were pretty indirect, but I don't think they were any worse than what Hawthorn were on the Saturday. Hawthorn just looked better because they dominated in the centre, and because they ended up winning. Its hard to know whether to blame the forward line for not offering enough, or the midfield for not delivering it to them, but either way, the Dockers didn't seem to have many ways to score.

Medhurst at least didn't give up, and I saw him pass the ball several times. Thornton tried hard and supplied good run through the centre a few times. I would have thought Parker could have taken Richo for a run now and then too, but that didn't happen. Apart from that, there weren't too many positives. Sandilands got outmarked by rovers.

Final Score : Fremantle 7.10-52 lost to Richmond 14.16-100

� 2005 timnfromoz timnfromoz@hotmail.com

Return to TimN's Home Page