Matthew Pavlich could see it in their unburdened eyes. It was the look he'd seen some 14 times before. A look of ignorance, of hope. It was the look he'd seen on the faces of his team mates and, if he were to be honest, on his own reflection over many an innocent summer spent telling himself that this year would be the year. 

He didn't look like that anymore. Now, he'd been there. He'd put himself within breathing distance of the cup. He's spelt the metal polish and fondled it's ribbons. He'd been to the top of the mountain but the view was blocked by clouds. Dark clouds. 

When he looked at his reflection now, all he saw were cold dead eyes staring back at him. Eyes with unfinished business. When he looked at the Collingwood players he saw straight through them. They didn't know what he knew. They didn't feel the aching in their guts or the pain of the empty trophy cabinet inside his mighty chest. They were there merely to play at football. He was there to do football. 

Pav and the boys knew that Collingwood had come out full of enthusiasm, wearing hope on their sleeves but Fremantle would not be sucked into playing Collingwood's game. They couldn’t be sucked into playing Collingwood’s game, their cold, dead hearts wouldn’t allow it. 

So they played dead and absorbed the expected Collingwood attacked, draining the Magpies with a wall of tall marking and a trench of bastards. As wave after wave of their best attack was stamped out, you could see the promise draining from the  Collingwood players' faces as they realised all the stories the coach had told them about hard work paying off were just fairytales. 

They got some respite when a lucky one drifted over the top of the Fremantle defence but a surgical strike from Hayden Ballantyne settled the scores. Cameron Sutcliffe did likewise when Swan got a suspicious one, as the futility of it all started to sink into the Collingwood players' heads.  For all their efforts and make no mistake, they had thrown their best at it, they were a mere rushed behind in front of Fremantle, who'd barely raised a sweat.  

They trudged over to their quarter time huddle and a few minutes in the company of their coach, his summer of lies now apparent, and the breaking of the Collingwood players was all but complete. 

Fremantle returned to the ground with barely an opposition, leaving Fyfe and Barlow to dazzle the Collingwood supporters with their wares, running amok through the centre and creating panic in what Collingwood were calling a backline. 

What transpired thereafter was little more than a public execution. 

The heavy bumps, the strong marks, the precision kicks, Collingwood couldn't get a look at the football, but it was the goal kicking that killed them. Stephen Hill on the run from fifty, Matthew Pavlich declaring his dominance in the air and off the boot, Michael Barlow willing his oxygen deprived bodies into empty space, Nat Fyfe ..Oh my God...Nat Fyfe, Danyle Pearce cruising around like an Alfa Romeo that hasn't broken down yet and, finally, Hayden Ballanytne contorting himself and the football into positions that could only be broadcast on television after 9pm, for what has to be the earliest goal of the year winner in the history of the game. 

There was just silence at the ground. The Fremantle supporters were sitting in a stupor, drooling in anticipation of the season ahead - it made it hard to tell them apart from the Collingwood supporters who traditionally sit in a stupor drooling with the point of difference the open weeping. 

It was excruciating to watch. Two quarters into a season and Collingwood looked as if their year was over. They'd been given the cruelest of draws, a first up encounter against a hungry grand final team with a predisposition towards inflicting sorrow and pain on their opponents, but they still hadn't envisaged such a humiliating start to the season.  They had a lot of soul searching to do at half time. 

As did Fremantle. The Dockers had a decision to make. Did they bank the four points and settle themselves for the second leg of their premiership season or did they make this the first week of Collingwood's search for a new coach. 

The news for Nathan Buckley was not positive. 

While Fremantle's focus had turned to the season ahead, they weren't interested in protecting themselves for Round Two. Instead they were sending the rest of the competition a message. A warning. It was the footy equivalent of putting a head on a spike. 

Johnson to Sutcliffe to Ballantyne and through the goals. deBoer to Mzungu and over the goal umpires head. Mundy - bang, Pearce - bang, Crowley - bang as the midfielders headed down for some easy kicks after seeing Sandilands picking off “contested” marks in the forward line. 

There was one moment of mercy from the Fremantle beast late in the quarter, when Zac Dawson's big heart and Brent Macaffer got the better of him. Ryan Crowley was quick on the spot though and rubbed a salty lemon into the wound, drilling a last minute goal and taking Fremantle into the last change with a 63 point lead. 

It seemed cruel of the AFL not to call the game at three quarter time and let Collingwood go home, as most of their supporters had. Presumably it was a commercial decision, with advertising space needing to be sold, because there was nothing to be gained from a football point of view. The Magpies players were wrecks and Fremantle were just moving from set play to set play like a choreographed dance. It was farcical.

Ross Lyon decided that enough was enough and he handed the red vest to Nathan Fyfe, making him very unpopular at PubTabs around Australia amongst the Brownlow betting community. The players found a new way of humiliate the Magpies - by barely even trying. Pav was playing with a tranny in his ear (a wireless radio, not Nick Maxwell) so he could catch his horse running at Mooney Valley (and losing), Michael Walters had changed into some run of the mill white boots not wanting to waste the brilliance of his orange kicks on Collingwood any further and Ryan Crowley was hardly pinching anyone. 

It was barely a warm up session, before a light training run, yet still Fremantle dominated. Collingwood barely snuck one through when Michael Walters wandered into the backline to try and take a few speckies but he soon got bored down there and he unleashed up the other end, dobbing some fancy ones late to keep those who’d stayed entertained.  

When the final siren sounded, Fremantle were up by 70 points and the cart was wheeled out to collect the bodies. Meanwhile Pav and the boys punched their time cards and headed home to prepare for the next 24 wins.