AFL officials have been over the Fremantle Oval surface with a fine tooth comb this week to make sure the ground will be able to handle the walking frames and electric scooters of the aging Port Adelaide side. They found a lot of broken beer bottle glass on the ground which was believed to be from the Beer Festival but it turned out Chris Connolly had walked past a Freo MOB meeting earlier that day.

The good news is that all the glass has been cleaned up, they've splurged and bought some 100 watt globes for the light towers and all the dero's* have been herded over to Henderson St Mall for the weekend.

It should be a big night for the Dockers (well as big a night as you can have in March with half a side in a scratch match) with a big crowd expected to give the players a send off to Tasmania for the opening match in two weeks time.

The Dockers will be resting big names like Paul Hasleby, Luke McPharlin, Jeff Farmer, and Justin Longmuir as well as Shane "Hollywood" Parker, who won't play at a venue with a capacity of less than 30,000. Peter Bell will try and get back from Melbourne where he's been waving around the Queens Baton, however a last minute request for him to join the Australian rowing team as the coxswain might see him miss out.

Matthew Pavlich will be making an appearance however as will Jarrad Schofield so beer will not be sold in bottles.

Being St Patrick's day, Irish Roger Hayden could be making his extremely long anticipated return to the side but even if he doesn't, he's promised to do his famous impression of Tadhg Kennelly on the Premiership dais to keep the fans entertained. 

Bounce down is at 7 o'clock or there abouts depending on whether the South Fremantle stooges remember to leave the keys to the siren under the mat.

 

Scratch Match Teams Fremantle v Port Adelaide

Fremantle   Peter Bell   Heath Black   Adam Campbell   Matthew Carr   Troy Cook   Ryan Crowley   Steven Dodd   Marcus Drum   Paul Duffield   Daniel Gilmore   Antoni Grover   Roger Hayden   Des Headland   Michael Johnson   Shaun McManus   Paul Medhurst   David Mundy   Ryan Murphy   Matthew Pavlich   Brett Peake   Aaron Sandilands   Byron Schammer   Jarrad Schofield   Toby Stribbling   James Walker   Robert Warnock   Michael Warren   Luke Webster

Port Adelaide   Darryl Wakelin   Steven Salopek   Gavin Wanganeen   Brendon Lade   Adam Thompson   Peter Burgoyne   Shaun Burgoyne Aaron Shattock   Ben Eckerman   Daniel Motlop   Danyle Pearce   Stuart Dew   Kane Cornes   Matthew Bishop   Michael Wilson   Josh Mahoney   Brad Symes   Damon White   Domenic Cassisi   Troy Chaplin   Brett Ebert   Nathan Lonie   Toby Thurstans   Chad Cornes   Michael Pettigrew   Fabian Deluca   Jacob Surjan   Peter Walsh

*the ones without memberships of South Fremantle - which narrows it down to just Shoeless Pete.