 | Fremantle's season continues to hang in the balance this week and no one quite knows how things are going to pan out over the next couple of months. There are a few things you can count on this week though. The Dockers will have a red hot go, Peter Bell will play a blinder and Glen Archer will punch Mundy in the back of the head and get called courageous for doing it. |
| This week is one of those matches that get labelled 'a danger game'. What that means is that Fremantle are paying a pack of chumps and if they win they'll get nothing but if they lose, it's torch and pitch fork season. The Dockers will be buoyed by the fact that the Kangaroos are crap There's been a lot of talk about the Roos and how they are looking to move to the Gold Coast, to Sydney, to Canberra (well basically anywhere but bloody North Melbourne). There's been speculation about the future of their coach, the design of their jumper, the placement of their premiership cups in the trophy cabinet and pretty much everything else that needs fixing. But there's one issue that is gaining momentum and that is the name. They dropped North Melbourne a few years back because it made it harder to whore themselves out to the other states and now the push is on for the Kangaroos to be done away with as well. If things keep going the way they have for much of this year, 2008 could see The Kangaroos become known as The Bradburies. Never before has one football team cruised along behind the pace, catching teams off guard, injured, in crisis or just having a bad day. Some would call it fate, others good timing, some the universe repaying Dean Laidley for that head, but however you look at it, there's just no way it can't last. | | Fremantle's job this week then is to stay on their feet. Sure, they've had a week like something out of Rollerball with respected commentators like Collingwood's least successful coach, Tony Shaw; someone with the unfortunate name of Digby; and that Italian porn star sounding bloke with the unnatural love of Port Adelaide coming at them from al sorts of strange angles. Muckraking and rumour mongering have been hot on the agenda in the wake of a loss to the more drug addled side in town and the need for a distraction.
But it's nothing they haven't had to deal with before. When a team like Fremantle have to do things the hard way they get labelled inconsistent, mentally weak and they're giving supporters a rollercoaster ride. When the Roos do it it's called the Shinboner Spirit. Unless the Shinboners were front running, back punching, lace underpants wearing frauds, then it's hard to imagine how their spirit lives on.
Unfortunately for Fremantle though, they haven't been setting the world on fire this year. So it's a big match for both teams this week, some may even say pivotal. Fremantle are in the hunt for a spot in the eight and the Kangaroos have got one. Like a DVD recorder in Coolbelup, the only way Fremantle are going to get it is to take it.
What is going in Fremantle's favour is that, every time they've beaten the Kangaroos it's been a important victory. They are the side that most often invokes the hard hitting question to the coach ‘is that your best win ever?’
The win over North Melbourne at the WACA went down in Fremantle folklore when a bald headed albino soccered through a goal from the WACA Snax caravan to bring even the coach to his feet. It was the first time Fremantle had ever beaten the Roos and it was 5 years before it would happen again.
In 2003, Fremantle kicked, what to that point was, their highest ever score. 25 goals and 17 points, including a 10 goal third quarter. They backed up later that year to take on the Kangaroos at the MCG. A win was needed to get the Dockers into the finals for the first time. Clad in their heritage jumpers, down by 4 goals in the third quarter, Fremantle called on a 120 of history, 9 years of experience and some 21st century sports medicine to overrun the Roos and win the game by a point with a shonky kick in the dying seconds from Dessy Headland. That wobbly kick removed the colony of Gorillas who'd taken up residence on Fremantle's back and set up one of the great sporting moments in Australia history when the Dockers tackled Essendon at Subiaco Oval a few weeks later.
Of course, when you look past Dean Laidley and the choc milk stains down his familiar tracksuit, to the bunch of hopefuls and has beens training in front of a dilapidated club house next to a car park of beat up Ford Cortinas and nondescript Datsuns, it's hard to imagine why beating the Kangaroos would ever be anything more than a well worn routine. They're really not very good.
Despite their shortcomings, there's a lot of talk that the Kangaroos are looking hungry this season. There’s a simple reason for that - they don't get paid. Wednesday afternoon training at North Melbourne involves the players spreading out around the city to do a spot of busking so they can afford to keep the lights on for their Thursday night Party Pie night. Jess Sinclair's mime act is a site to behold. One week he even raised enough change that they were able to afford a Party Pie and Movie night. Video rental was a bit of a stretch but luckily Peter Bell had left his video of They Call Me Bruce in his locker when he took his sack of money and headed back to Fremantle, so a good time was had by all.
The coffers are full down at Fremantle, it's just the trophy cabinet that's a bit on the easy to clean side. When the Dockers ran into the Kangaroos in the pre-season, that was all going to change. They were on target for the NAB Cup/AFL Premiership double, everything was looking good - then the bloody Kangaroos knocked Fremantle out, ran into Michael Johnson's arse and stitched Jeff Farmer up for 6 weeks with one of the most cowardly acts of deceit ever perpetrated in an AFL tribunal room. It not only knocked Fremantle out of the pre-season competition but knocked them off their feet as well.
Only now are Fremantle starting to get themselves back up from the matt after that game - and they've had a long time to think about it. Quietly seething, waiting for this moment. First Jeff Farmer will take out Daniel Pratt. Not with the sort of punch that Pratt threw at Farmer. No, Jeff doesn't go in for that kind of angry violent behaviour. Instead, he'll run rings around him. Give the goose a lesson in what footy is all about. If he makes it to quarter time without being benched, he'll be begging Laids for a spell. Either way, he'll be too far away to make up any stories about scratched eyeballs.
Then Michael Johnson will go after his revenge. He was given 4 weeks when someone ran into him, so his plan is to see how many players he can run into and put out for four weeks. The talk is that he'll start in the centre of the ground and start picking blokes off with his arse, one by one. Expect the sort of scenes you usually only get in Japanese monster movies as hoards of North Melbourne players run away screaming in terror.
And then it's Matthew Pavlich's time to have some fun. As far as anyone knows, he doesn't have any particular gripe against the Kangaroos, he just likes going to town against them. Up forward, down back and in the middle, when he's playing the Kangaroos he always seems to turn on the sort of games that have grubby little South Australian coaches throwing sacks of money in his direction.
Early money is for Pavlich to break the Fremantle goal kicking record but there's also late money for him to go into the centre again and revolutionise how the game of Australian Rules is played. One bet has even been placed that he’ll run up to the coaches box, get on the phone and start reorganising the midfield.
Whatever he decides, expect the result to go in Fremantle's favour and the Speedwagon to start filling up again by Sunday night.
The Teams
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