Winning Ugly Is The New Black

Fremantle have gone out of their way not to be pretty, for fear of looking soft, refusing to get sucked in to belting the Suns and gaining showy percentage like so many other teams seem keen to do. Instead they used their game on the Gold Coast to get some extra run into their legs while providing the Queensland locals with just enough hope to keep them coming back to games of Aussie Rules by letting the Suns look good in the first half then pegging their lead back before just sneaking over the line in the last minutes of the game. A cold, calculated win that is sure to have the competition sitting up and taking note of the new Fremantle way of getting things done.  
 
 

 

In an historic first, Fremantle headed the the Gold Coast - Australia's capital for handing over large sums of cash in nondescript briefcases - to play the Suns. There was a bit of a carnival atmosphere to welcome the Dockers to Metricon Stadium; with bouncy castles, baby ducks and rabbits, carnival rides and face painting. The only thing missing was the Queensland branch of the Mucky Duck Bush Band. 

It all brought a smile to the Fremantle players' faces. Not so much because watching Hayden Ballantyne and Lachie Neal set loose on  bouncy castle is close to the eighth wonder of the world but because it's always a good sign when the opposition team's marketing department are pushing the face painting more than they're pushing the game of football. 

But Ross Lyon was wary. He'd been t the Gold Coast before. He'd hit the nightclubs. He knew that although something may look good on the surface you can often be surprised by what's lurking, or hanging, down below.  So, while others may have been sucked in by the antics going on around the ground and lured in to opening things up to try and kick a big, percentage boosting score, he was sticking to his guns.  Slow and steady. Well, reasonably steady. ....more