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You see, back at the start of the season, the AFL started running some tv advertisements celebrating the very dubious anniversary of the 150th anniversary of Australian Rules Football. Now, even if you can get past the fact that most historians outside of Victoria agree that, as a young boy, Sir John and Alexander Forrest invented the game of Aussie Rules out the back of their hotel in Bunbury. The local aboriginal people copied the game and they spread it around the colonies faster than the Governor could shoot them.
When it got to Victoria, Tom Wills nicked it from the local Aboriginal people, had them shot, then introduced a complicated and long winded system for getting umpires to bugger things up each weekend.
But that's beside the point.
Amongst his hive of lies and half truths from this one man Victorian propaganda machine, there was one thing that really stuck in the Fremantle Football Club's gut - the idea that the AFL are working on cloning the perfect team - the team of Jonathan Browns.
Now we've all seen the footage of the secret underground genetics labs that the AFL are operating. They steal people in the middle of the night, when they fall into a mini coma attempting to sit through the half time filler material on Friday Night Football. Then they take them away to their underground facility at the Tesltra Dome, the one that is stopping the grass from growing, and they inject a chemical which alters the part of the human DNA which tells to the brain - $6 for pig snouts in a stale bun without sauce...we’re not paying that - and then they return them to their bed none the wiser.
We know that the AFL are conducting these sorts of experiments and, they probably are trying to create the perfect team but for Jeff's sake, as if they'd make 22 Jonathan Browns when the greatest living footballer is running around on the other side of the country, playing football, running a pub and swatting back rotten fruit as Victorian journalists pelt him while he goes about his business.
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For a big log, Brown can certainly move alright. He can take a pack mark if Ray Chamberlain isn't at the ground and he can kick the football but, despite what every one of them will tell you, you can't have 22 centre half forwards in the team.
Five time All Australian Matthew Pavlich on the other hand has been All Australian 5 times - in 5 different spots. SO he's already proven he’s the best bloke available for 5 spots on the ground and if he were ever to be wasted down back again, he'd wipe the floor with Jonathan Brown.
Now, anyone who's ever tried to get the role as the bearded country publican or the gruff old bloke with a heart of gold, in an Australian film, will know that Bill Hunter is not a man to be messed with. Why do you think Jack Thompson has to do so many films with that bad American accent - because Bill Hunter threatened his wives. So Fremantle don't take lightly the challenge in front of them this weekend.
That challenge is to make Bill Hunter look like a goose. Now, although there are plenty of Fremantle people who reckon there are more than one Jeff Farmer – not just because he seems to be everywhere on the ground but there are also several members prepared to swear on a stack of bibles that the same night he was supposed to be hitting that bouncer, he was actually at their place watching a DVD from the box set of The Scarecrow And Mrs. King, but we can't actually clone footballers yet. Which makes it impossible to settle the whole thing once and for all by playing a team of Pav’s against a team of Browns.
But what can happen is that, standing side by side, the world we see just how ordinary Jonathon Brown is in comparison.
Rumour has it, and it is just rumour, that, upon seeing the AFL ad at the beginning of the season, Pavlich got so angry he tore the leg off one of the rookies and used it to beat another to death. Luckily, the league forces the families of rookies to sign them over as the property of the AFL and its subsidiaries so in football terms it's the equivalent of one of us thumping a table – but that's pretty damn angry for Matthew Pavlich.
All year long he's been simmering. Waiting for his chance to go head to head with Brown. Every time he lines up for a goal, he imagines Jonathan Brown is standing in front of him – a tall thin white Jonathan Brown. If Brown were really there, he'd have been sconed in the head with a football so often, it would have swollen up so big that it would almost proportion with his neck.
So here is what is going to happen. Pavlich will start the game in the middle, possessed by the spirit that possessed Kouta for that year he was good. Pav will run riot. Picking the ball up with one hand and waving it in the face of Simon Black while he swats Lukey Power away with the other hand. He'll unload from the square and gaol goal after goal.
Then he'll move himself down to centre half forward where the tiny little Brisbane defenders will hover at his feet, praying that he takes mercy on them. He won't. He'll pull down grab after grab, dobbing goals from all sorts of angles, usually while Lions lie on their backs in his wake.
Then, when he's put the game away, he'll saunter down to centre half back and sidle up to Jonathan Brown. The sweat running down Brown's neck will be enough to divided Canada from the Yanks. The Fremantle midfield will have a rest and Brisbane will run the ball out of the centre unabated (a plan they have been practicing for some time) and the ball will come in to Brown with precision and prolificness – and every time it does, Pavlich will punch it away. Time after time, Brown will be left looking red cheeked. His face will be red too.
Pavlich will then walk from the ground, content with a job well done, head down to the rooms and practice his singing till the rest of the boys arrive for a long awaited sing along.
And Bill Hunter, will never work again.
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Bill Hunter is a bastard. He's probably sitting back right now, relaxing in his tree top, champagne filled jacuzzi, overlooking the Yarra, smoking a big fat imported cigar, sipping on his glass of puréed lobster tails and laughing himself silly. Laughing at Fremantle and the millions of dollars he received from the Anti Fremantle League to spread his lies and tarnish the reputation of a proud and passionate club. By the time the sun has set over Queensland on Sunday night, however, Bill will have had that smile wiped clean from his face.
