There’s an old saying in football - you can’t win finals if you don’t kick a goal in the first quarter. Actually, it’s only a few hours old but that doesn’t make it any less accurate. Fremantle smashed their way into the semi finals with a complete pantsing of Geelong in the opening quarter at the MCG. Geelong managed just one point while Freo put through 5 majors and buggered about 7 other times to go in with a 36 point lead. They kicked another couple after the break and from there it was just a case of smacking the Cats back down any time they got an idea of fighting back. Matthew Pavlich was magnificent up forward, Barlow had the ball on a string and Ballantyne was a ball of pure aggression as he threw himself about like he was at a dwarf tossing tournament. Fremantle now head to Adelaide where they will dish out further punishment on the Crows this Friday night.
Two years ago, after being forced into a tactical retreat at the loss of Aaron Sandilands, Des Headland and half the backline, Matthew Pavlich lead his team off of the MCG with their finals hopes torn to shreds. But like General MacArthur, Pavlich swore then and there that he would return.
Many just put that down to Pavlich spending his summer working on his terrible forehand down at the Fremantle Tennis Club but, true to his word (although he’s still crap at tennis) Pavlich did return, singlehandedly dragging his team up from the zombie land they call 12th-9th spot on the ladder and into 7th place, where they would once again be matched against Geelong at the MCG...but this time they were fit, ready and less stringent about abiding by the Geneva convention.
Geelong, for their part, had seen this day coming. For all the premierships, Brownlow medals and Abletts that they'd won and lost in the past few years, they still knew that Fremantle had their measure. Their greatest fear was to meet a fit and firing Fremantle side in September, to the point where those fears got the better of some of their senior players when the two sides last met, throwing punches and dropping knees into the smallest and youngest of the Freo players. Like Bobby Davis used to tell his boys when he took the Cats on the road - 'kill anyone who'll ever grow up to wear a pair of footy boots'. ....Read More