It had become the stuff of legends. The story went that, on the plane back from Adelaide a few weeks back, Matthew Pavlich grabbed himself a notepad, borrowed a packet of Textas from Hayden Ballantyne and started working on a Uma Thurman style kill list. 

As he carefully wrote out each of the teams on his kill list, Pavlich would stylistically flash back to events that tore him apart inside, mostly in memories ripped off from Italian and Japanese cinema. 

First on the list was the West Coast Eagles. He didn’t really need a reason to want to kill the Eagles but they’d embarrassed him and his boys earlier in the season and it stung. It stung bad. They were to be his first target and a few days later he ripped them to shreds, kicking 8 goals and sending their supporters scurrying back under rocks or into Channel 7 studios. 

Next on the list was Geelong. The Cats had killed of Fremantle’s previous tilt at a flag in less than flattering style so when Pav was given a second crack at Geelong in a final at the MCG, he single handedly tore them limb from limb - best on ground with a lazy 6 goals. 

Adelaide came in at number three on his list. Fremantle were destined for a flag in 2006, there were very few things that could have stopped them but it turned out getting the worst finals draw in history and starting off with a match in Adelaide against Adelaide was one of them. Tonight he was going to make amends for that. The Crows were about to get a taste of revenge, Matthew Pavlich style.

No secret was made of the fact that Pav was coming for the Crows. The supporters knew it and they stayed home in droves. The players knew it too so the entire Adelaide defense formed a ring around the big Freo captain. They're not particularly bright over in Adelaide. 

With most of the Crows watching Pavlich, it left a lot of the Freo players free. Mundy waltzed the ball out of the middle, kicked it to Michael Walters who kicked it to Chris Mayne. 30 seconds in and Mayne had kicked Freo's first goal.

They went back to the centre, took it out and another thirty seconds later Walters was kicking the footy to Mayne and Mayne was kicking a goal again. 

Freo were on red hot pace. Those running the calculations at home had Fremantle on track for a score of plus 600 as Fremantle moved the ball with such efficiency that there were suggestions they were breaking the laws of thermodynamics. 

Ross Lyon picked up the phone to send out a message of congratulations to his players for being pretty much perfect but found that there wasn't a runner on the end of the phone, someone had patched Andrew Demetriou in. The chief was worried. It was hard enough getting people to go to the football in Adelaide as it was, and tarpaulins aren't cheap either, so he asked Ross if he could maybe pull back a bit and just ease into a shellacking this week instead of ending the game in a few minutes. 

Always a team player, Ross agreed to slow things down slightly and Fremantle backed away from their plan to kick 600 points. They played  good defensive game, running down Adelaide players, shoving them into the dirt, the fence, each other and various objects that blew onto the ground. They locked things up and made sure any Adelaide entry inside fifty was met with a pack of Freo blokes and a continually frustrated group of Crows supporters. 

That was great for a while but there came a point where Michael Walters found that he either needed to kick a goal or eat himself a hamburger. A model of discipline, he decided to kick the goal and dobbed one off half a step as he was attacked by a pack of Crows. 

The crowd were growing increasingly annoyed. That annoyance manifested itself as some sort of low pitched groaning noise. No one was quite sure if they were boing Ryan Crowley, the umpires or their own team but they appeared to be having a go, which was more than could be said for the Adelaide players. 

Fremantle were on top all over the ground, they were creating space, time and goals a plenty but just when it looked like we were in for another first quarter pantasing, Geelong style, Pat Dangerfield broke the duck, through a McPhee related incident, and the crowd stopped booing for a moment. 

It was only a short pause though. Michael Walters sprung back into action and, after having a hand and a foot in every Fremantle goal for the quarter, kicked his second to take Freo into the first change with a 3 goal lead and a well practiced Freeeeee-ooooooo chant providing the soundtrack as they jogged into their huddle.

Everyone was pretty happy with the way things were going. Mundy had the ball on a string, Sandilands was dominating the air, Ballantyne had met some new friends and was already on a nickname basis with them (he'd made up the nick names). Everything was set up for a perfect evening. Well, relatively speaking. It was in Adelaide, after all.

The second quarter kicked off just like the first. Mayne had a goal in the opening thirty seconds. He should have had a second one thirty seconds after that but the local conditions got the better of his kicking boots. 

Fremantle had  nice rhythm going Sandilands to Mundy to one of the other 15 players and then to Mayne. That was until Hayden Ballantyne decided he wanted to play as well. With a wall of players standing around Pavlich, there were plenty of opportunities for your cheeky forward type to get a few kicks. 

Pavlich miraculously got a kick, outside fifty but he fancied his chances anyway. He booted the footy but it didn't have the carry and appeared to land in the goal square. That's where things got a bit confusing. Did Ballantyne have another ball tucked under his arm? Was there some sort of trap door built into the goal square that fired out a football while he misdirected everyone's attention? Was there a second kicker? No one may ever know but as the ball came down, Ballantyne stood in a pack of what he's now saying was 12 Adelaide players. The ball hit the deck, the players all dived on Ballantyne but somehow he got a boot on the ball, weaved it between all their legs, kicked the goal and blew their freakin minds - putting Fremantle 5 goals up and sending the Freo supporters looking for cheap airfares on the internet. 

The Crows were worried. More than worried. Most of them knew they'd coughed up the game and were headed for a straight sets exit from the finals. They're a proud club though so they also knew they had to at least try and fight things out to the final siren. 

God bless their little hearts, they kept at Fremantle. They niggled, they chased, the blocked up the spaces and eventually all their hard work paid off and they scored another goal. Sadly, Ibbotson returned the favoured straight after and their hard work had been for very little. 

Still they kept going though. They managed to fire off a few shots at goals but had more misses than Mickey Rooney with Fremantle's pressure was causing them to take wild potshots from the pockets. The Dockers weren't streaking ahead like many had expected but they looked set to take a handy 4 goal lead into the halftime break, for a sensible consolidating second half. Then things started to go wrong. 

With a couple of minutes left on the clock, Dangerfield jagged another goal, which seemed to be the way his night was going, cutting Fremantle's lead back to 20 points. It was disappointing but not the end of the world and they would have been happy to leave it there. Unfortunately the Crows decided they had a bit of momentum. A long kick to the forward line had Silvagni beat before it started to drop and Taylor Walker marked on the siren, then kicked the goal after it. At half time Freo had barely a two goal lead. It was unheard of. 

The Dockers were in unfamiliar territory. It had been a long time since they hadn't had the game wrapped up by halftime. Normally their supporters were doing laps of the ground with the Mexican Wave.  The coach sat them all down, went through the game plan he found in Mark Harvey's old desk drawer and rattled off a few motivational slogans and then sent them back out to get the job done by three quarter time - he had a sandwich to eat and it would just look unprofessional if he did while the Crows were within 4 goals. 

Well renowned for their quick starts to quarters, Fremantle were pretty confident they would put an early gap in the scoreboard and break the Crows' spirit. At least, that was the plan. At some point, the Crows seemed to have changed their plan from saving face and holding on to their dignity to having some sort of a shot at taking the lead. Tyson Walker went on a Pavlich like rampage (who coincidentally was going on a Walker like not get the ball a thon). He put through a couple of goals, helping Wright to a third and taking the lead. 

It made no sense. Fremantle were behind. 

The Crows had played the ground like locals, they'd blocked every angle, filled every space and turned the once majestic Matthew Pavlich into a sort of Zac Dawson like character. Like a good South Australian wine it had been discreet and slow to come on.  The Dockers were being challenged for the first time since...well, the last time they'd played Adelaide. 

But Fremantle still had a few tricks up their sleeve. One trick gos by the name of Fyfe! Ah-Ah! and he did attempt to save everyone of us, picking the ball up, throwing it on his boot and snapping the ball from 80 metres out. The physics of it didn't add up but the scoreboard did and it had Fremantle back in the lead. 

Fremantle looked safe once again but Adelaide are nothing if not plucky and they refused to accept their place in the scheme of Fremantle’s win, Walker in particular. He sent the footy flying over the pack to Tippet who was seagulling about in the goal square ready to kick an easy goal. 

It was a cruel blow for Fremantle who had to suffer the indignation of going into the three quarter time break behind. That's right - behind. It was the ultimate humiliation for the in form team in the league. Ibbotson couldn't bear it, he called for the red vest and sent Suban out to wear the shame of being behind. 

Suban wasn't happy about it. It was one thing to be the sub, it was another to have to take the blame for a team that had fallen behind, so he sorted it out. 

When the last quarter kicked off, he wandered down into the forward line, found the footy, sold a couple of dummies and willed himself a goal to put Fremantle back in the lead. 

Problem solved. 

Back in the centre there was a bit of heat. The Crows were still refusing to concede the match and Fremantle were getting angrier and angrier at the refusal. A quick kick from Spurr at the centre bounce went straight down the guts and into the well rested hands of Matthew Pavlich. He drilled the goal, pumped his fist a few times and Fremantle were heading home with a wet sail.

It turns out the wet sail are no match for a good outboard motor. Just when Fremantle thought they had the Crows beat, they came back even harder. A couple of quick goals put them in front and then they ran the Dockers ragged. Two weeks on the road and a tough fight for a finals berth seemed to have taken it's toll on the Freo boys as they found themselves off the pace, missing targets and rocking up after the party had moved on. 

Tyson Walker finished Fremantle off with another two goals and the Dockers season was done, losing by 10 points and heading back to Fremantle with nothing to do next weekend.  

It's just unfortunate for Adelaide that Pavlich has a long memory, and Ballantyne is always on hand with a packet of Textas.