Have you ever left the house and had that nagging feeling you’d forgotten something? You go through the checklist in your head but you can’t think what it might be. Then you finally arrive at you destination and it hits you. It hit Fremantle. They’d forgotten to bring their midfield.

Ryan Crowley was left on the kitchen table, they’d dropped David Mundy in the driveway as they got into the car, Michael Barlow was still stuck in the disabled toilet and no one has been able to find Byron Schammer  in months - luckily they’d remembered to pack Paul Hasleby in the side pocket just in case.

Despite realising their mistake, there wasn’t much they could do about it so Mark Harvey hoped they could get by without one. It was only the Western Bulldogs on a short, narrow stadium - there was a good chance no one would even notice.

He was right. When they siren sounded and the ball was bounced, absolutely no one noticed Fremantle’s midfield. The Bulldogs had the ball out of the centre before you could say “Did we forget out defense too?” and into the arms of Brian Lake who kicked the opening goal of the match at big odds.

Fremantle weren’t concerned. They’d been caught out of position early but a few adjustments and they’d get their team structure right. 

Bang! Lake had another goal.

It’s important to get a good start when you’re playing away from home but, as Melbourne had shown a week earlier, it’s not everything they just needed...Bang! Higgins had a goal.

They were really letting them get....Bang! Griffen had a goal.

Fremantle just couldn’t stop them. The centre bounces were like a Vaudeville show as the cobbled together Dockers midfield would comically slip over and watch the Dogs run off with it. Then it was just a matter of picking out a man, putting the ball in front of him and waiting for the Fremantle defender to lose his as he scrambled to catch up.

Eventually Hayden Ballantyne was sent up the ground and managed to get the ball going Freo’s way where Michael Johnson wrapped Murphy up in a tackle to win a free kick and kick a goal. Finally.

It was a much needed goal and Fremantle still had a lot of work to do but ... Bang! Cooney had a goal. Picken had one too. Then Hall chimed in.

Fremantle were getting belted. Working the white board was like doing some sort of Rubik’s Puzzle as they tried to work out which area of the ground they were going to have to sacrifice to make the other two competent.

With 7 goals already through, they decided to give up on the defence and go on the all out attack.

It might be a stretch to say it worked well but it certainly was better than whatever it was they were playing at for the first half of the quarter. Rhys Palmer was enjoying having some supporter in the centre and started to win the footy Fremantle’s way.

Getting the ball forward gave the Dockers a chance to use their deforwards well, and when Clancee Pearce tackled Hargraves dizzy, he fired out a handpass that went straight to Ballantyne, who snapped a goal before enforcing his physical presence on the first bloke stupid enough to run past him.

It didn’t take much for the Dogs to get the reply but Fremantle were at least putting up some resistance now and, thanks to another beautiful pass from Ballantyne, Paul Hasleby, who’s a good mark for his size, pulled down a grab in the forward line and gave the Dockers something to feel less embarrassed about.

With just a couple of minutes left till half time, ideally Fremantle would have shut things down and gone into the quarter time break on a slightly positive note but they didn’t even have the firepower to organise a decent flood. A run through the centre from the Bulldogs finished with Ward landing the ball on Barry Hall’s chest, laces out, sponsors logo to the camera, reflecting the lights into the Fremantle defenders’ eyes.

They were in such good form, Barry Hall didn’t even look away from the umpire he was abusing as he took his kick - splitting the middle nonetheless.

As the quarter finally came to an end, a broken Mark Harvey trudged out to the centre with his side 39 points down. Going through his mind was the decision on whether to start resting players now or fight it out for a miraculous win.

He opted for a fight it out policy.

It seemed like an inspired decision as Fremantle returned full of run and ready to throw themselves at the footy. But it went bad quickly.

Fyfe and Morabito kicked like they were unbidextrous, coughing up easy chances in front of goals; then Fremantle’s midfield, Rhys Palmer, was escorted from the ground with a bung shoulder; and Barry Hall popped through a couple of soft goals as Fremantle started to lose the plot once again.

It took the steady head of Adam McPhee to get Fremantle back kicking goals but every time Fremantle would look to be gaining back some lost ground, the Bulldogs would sashay down the middle of the ground and spot up a forward with pin point accuracy. Their forwards weren’t doing Freo any favours either, rarely not putting it straight over the goal umpires hat.

An unselfish centring of the ball from Hayden Ballantyne gave Jess Crichton his first AFL goal when he marked the ball in the square but that was the only good news for Fremantle for the quarter, The Dogs put through a couple more and the half time margin was out to 66 points.

There was a strong feeling amongst some of Fremantle’s head honchos that it was time to concede the game and give some of the key players at Freo the rest that looked like they were desperate to get. Particularly vocal on the matter were those players who wanted to be rested. They were getting killed out there and with the Etihad surface barely able to hold the properties of a solid, every minute they spent out there they moved closer to Aaron Sandilands falling onto Matthew Pavlich and rupturing some sort of rupturable thing in the both of them.

Mark Harvey wasn’t having any of that carry on though. He’s one of those coaches who like to build character by fighting things out till the end (which is pretty much all coaches except Johny Worsfold who comes from the school of - put in as little effort as possible then blame the assistants).

So Fremantle ran back out onto Etihad Stadium with their heads held high, their eyes closed and their thoughts with England. Things started so badly that even Brad Johnson kicked a goal against them, his first since Scott West was in contention for a Browlow.

Fremantle had some excitement when Rhys Palmer courageously returned to the ground, his arm strapped up like Hannibal Lecter and tranqued up like Ben Cousins on a Monday morning,  to dob one on the run from fifty.

All of a sudden, Fremantle had a midfielder again. The Bulldogs weren’t quite sure how to react. They managed to kick another goal when the umpire, understandably, forgot there were two teams on the ground, but Fremantle had lifted.

Matthew Pavlich finally took a contested mark in the goal square to get his first goal since Michael  Barlow was in contention for the Brownlow and Nat Fyfe took a screamer to make it two in a row. It was Freo’s first back to back goals for the match. The supporter started a wave.

The Doggies got one against the flow of play when none of the Freo players could stomach looking at Jarrod Grant any longer, and left him unchecked in the Dogs’ forward line but they quickly had the answer and Garrick Ibbotson showed some class, giving Fremantle the reply right on three quarter time.

Fremantle hadn’t actually won the quarter but they’d certainly managed to keep their pants up for the first time in the match. They went into the break with a 10 goal deficit but there was a bit of a vibe that they could finally get the better of the Bulldogs in the last quarter, and run out the game with some self respect.

They couldn’t. While Matthew Pavlich managed to drill three goals for the quarter, they were leaking goals at the other end like Jason Akermanis in the studios of MTR. Six more goals went through for the Dogs and Fremantle finished off the day 82 points behind.

The consensus by the players afterwards was that the game should never be mentioned again but that they would need to find something to take their frustrations out on in the next week or so. You wouldn’t want to be an Eagles player on Sunday.