As the 2006 season rolled on for Fremantle, it seemed no one who could stop the Freo Speedwagon's ever increasing momentum. The AFL offered up the Crows at home and Fremantle ripped through them like the Blues Brothers through a shopping centre, winning by 15 points and stretching their streak to an unprecedented 6 in a row.

Adelaide v Fremantle
Sunday 13th August 2006
Subiaco Oval

For the first time in the history of the Fremantle Dockers, when they arrived at the home of the opposition, they didn’t walk meekly onto the ground, hoping that if everything went just right for them they might be able to steal an upset win (or at least leave with their pants still around their waists). They didn’t apologetically sidle their way to their positions, eyes low but darting around the crowd in the hope that one or two of their supporters had managed to sneak into the ground.  No, they didn’t. They strode out onto AAMI Stadium, casting a shadow over the forty thousand Crows supporters, expecting to leave with the four points.

They weren’t the young, erratic boys we’ve come to know as The Dockers, they were the Fremantle Football Club. Big, strong confident men with a job to do. Channeling the spirits of wharfies and blacksmiths and blokes who picked up big limestone rocks and put them down somewhere else. Fearless, tough and honest.

When the ball was bounced, there was an eerie silence around the ground. They may have been sitting on top of the ladder but the Crows supporters were scared. They had every right to be too. As the Dockers moved the ball forward the Crows were under siege early. Every time they were able to weather the storm, another front would come through and the Dockers would be back on the attack. Unlucky not to kick the opening three goals of the match, it was actually the Crows who drew first blood, with Hentschel jagging one from the pocket against the flow of play.

But with Fremantle’s quick ball movement through the centre, it wasn’t long before they had the reply and the sight of Jeff Farmer running in to an open goal was welcomed with two fingers up from his goal umpiring mate.

Bock followed in Hentschel’s shoes, jagging one against the flow but putting the ball back in the centre just gave Troy Cook another chance to monster blokes. As the Dockers bashed and crashed their way through the Crows, eventually the Adelaide boys started to back off and cower in the pockets. Byron Schammer found one of them hiding away in Fremantle’s forward line with the footy. He wrapped him up in a tackle and, thankfully, the umpire blew his whistle just before Rutten burst into tears. Schammer converted for the goal and Fremantle were in the lead.

Freo pulled out the grinder and started peppering the goals and were in danger of wasting their ascendency with the footy as the quarter time siren approached, but they don’t call Jeff Farmer the Wiz because he spends him time skipping around yellow streets with Dianna Ross and Michael Jackson. He chased down Johncock and ripped his arms off, giving Johncock no way of disposing of the ball. The free kick was given, Farmer put through the goal and Fremantle went into the first change 9 points in front.

After regrouping, and with the wind at their backs, the Crows gave Fremantle a look at just why they were sitting on top of the ladder. Lead  by Shane Parker, the  Freo defence absorbed most of the flack but as Heath Black was carried off the ground, Adelaide managed to sneak through 3 goals to Fremantle’s 1 in the opening half of the quarter. A perfect afternoon’s work.

There was a massive pump in the air and Fremantle were standing square under it. The Crows were making good use of the wind, they had won back the confidence of their supporters and they were in front.

It was Fremantle’s turn to regroup now and, when the ball spilled Shaun McManus’s way,  the boy from the rough and tumble of Palmyra picked out Byron Schammer on the lead and gave him the lace out sponsors logo to the camera treatment. Schammer lined the goal up with the care of a one eyed surveyor measuring up a minefield and put through his second to give the Dockers back the lead.

That’s when the floodgates opened. Fremantle had risen to Adelaide’s level but the Crows forgot to say when. Running in numbers through the centre, they started spoon feeding the forwards.

Pavlich dobbed one from somewhere in Victor Harbour, Peake spun out of trouble to snap his first of the day and then Justin Longmuir rubbed salt into the wound by pulling down a screamer in the goal square while holding back a yawn.

When the siren sounded to give the Crows another regrouping opportunity, Fremantle were 18 points in front.  The signs weren’t just good on the scoreboard either. Fremantle were moving the ball quickly, playing direct, backing each other up, doing all the things good footy teams do, and doing them a lot.

When the sides returned from their cordial and orange break, there was going to be no time for anyone to run off that extra cup of Cottee’s they downed on the way back. Van Berlo had put through a goal for Adelaide in the opening twenty seconds. To counter, Jeff Farmer had the second goal of the half in 25 seconds later.

Fremantle weren’t going top be shaken off. This was the new Fremantle. The steely eyed professional footy players who didn’t give in to bouts of poor form. Twenty two players wearing the same purple and white outfit yet still as tough and as determined as they come.

The one bloke who has always epitomised the Freo ethos is Peter Bell and, while he didn’t want to appearing to be slacking, he’d run himself ragged for the first half and was still pretty much buggered. He knew the only way to get a rest was to take a mark in the forward line and then carry on like a movie star for ten minutes. He took a mark, took his rest, and then decided he might as well put through a goal while he was there. Fremantle skipped ahead to a 23 point lead in front of forty thousand very quiet people, and the bookies stopped taking bets.

Unable to find a weak spot in the Fremantle line-up, there wasn’t much Adelaide could do except try and bottle things up. The got numbers around the play and made it difficult for the Dockers to keep firing the ball in to the forward line.

It was tough going for both sides – Freo working hard, trying to drive the ball into attack, Adelaide trying to wrap Fremantle up and then bolt in the other direction like a game of Kiss Chasey. It was exhausting. Eventually though, it was the umpires who couldn’t handle the pressure any longer. They dished out a couple of goals to Adelaide through some very suspicious free kicks and the Crows were back in the match.

The crowd lifted and took the Adelaide players with them. Fremantle were under siege. Another rule defying free kick saw Steven Dodd penalised for the cleanest spoil ever executed and Adelaide made it three goals in a row.

Fremantle’s lead was back in to 4 points. They were in trouble. The Crows were coming at them with everything they had and the umpires had become mere puppets of the Adelaide members. All the Dockers could do was try and hold on. The three quarter time siren was looking like a tropical oasis in the desert.

But, just as they could feel the cool breeze blowing off the water, Hentschel dobbed one from fifty out, into the wind, on the siren, and took  the Crows into the lead at three quarter time.

The Adelaide crowd spent the break on their feet. With the momentum they’d gained and the wind at their players backs, like their ancestors before them, they looked like getting out of jail.

What they didn’t realise was that Fremantle were no longer that easily gotten rid of. They were in their huddle, geeing each other up eating the orange peels and throwing the fruit away so they’d have plenty of roughage available to use on the Adelaide midfielders.

They did hit the Crows hard when the final term kicked off but, against waves of Adelaide players storming through the centre, it was the Dockers defence who were forced to stand tall. Courageous marks were coming in bulk as the like of Luke McPharlin and Michael Johnson held off the Crows from making their kill shot.

As the Dockers gradually started to swing the momentum back their way, they applied that pepper grinder to the goals again, creeping their way back to the Crows score.

Then, like something out of an 80’s action movie, out number and out gunned, Michael Johnson fought off dozens and dozens of Adelaide players to get to a loose ball. When he got there he had to fight of dozens and dozens more players, tapping and knocking the ball down the boundary line until he was finally clear enough (only 4 blokes around him) to bend down and pick it up. Once he had the ball in his hands, all he could do was send it in the general direction of Jeff Farmer and enjoy the show.

Farmer beat off a similar number of players, ducking, weaving, dodging and contorting his way around them until he somehow got a kick away to Ryan Murphy who, with the dozens of players surrounding Farmer and Johnson, was not surprisingly on his own. Murphy took the mark and let his golden boots put Freo back into the lead.

Everything was going in Adelaide’s favour but still Fremantle were able to fight their way back into the lead. No wonder they were playing with such confidence. When Jeff Farmer put the ball into Fremantle forward fifty – a forward fifty solely inhabited by Matthew Pavlich, the Freo players would have felt like millionaires (although, that could be because most of them actually are millionaires). Pavlich strolled in to kick the goal and the Dockers had a handy buffer.

It was too soon to milk the clock which was bad news for the Crows. The Dockers were looking dangerous. Percentage boosting was on the cards. Pavlich narrowly missed one but the interception saw Freo back on the attack. Brett Peake spotted up Matthew Carr in the pocket and sent a perfectly weighted pass in his direction. Carr, who had been leaning on the point post having a bit of a breather, took his hands out of his pockets, brought down a screamer and then snapped the goal.

Still heavy on the pepper, the Dockers margin grew in increments and the time ticked away. As the Kiss Chasey style play of the Crows broke down, heads started to drop and Adelaide supporters started to leave early for whatever the South Australian equivalent of beating the traffic is (getting to the front of the communion line at Sunday night mass perhaps?).  

When the siren finally echoed around the near empty stadium, Freo had secured one of the great wins in the history of the club, locked themselves into September action for the second time ever and made a lot of Freo supporters a lot of money on the punt.

Scores

Adelaide 2.3 5.10 10.14 10.20 80 Fremantle 3.6 8.10 10.11 13.17 95

Goals

Fremantle   J.Farmer 3   M.Pavlich 2   B.Schammer 2   R.Murphy 1   P.Bell 1   J.Carr 1   J.Longmuir 1   M.Carr 1   B.Peake 1                     Adelaide     M.Bode 4   T.Hentschel 3   N.Bock 1   N.Van Berlo 1   S.Welsh 1

Clinto Wolf Medal Votes

Peter Bell 3 Heath Black 2 Jeff Farmer 1