The mid season break had come and gone and a week away from football can seem like a long time in the middle of winter. The withdrawal symptoms were evident as people arrived at Subiaco Oval. There was twitching, sweating and paranoia - and that was just the bloke dressed like Oliver standing outside the Eagles change rooms. But for one man the wait had been much, much longer. For 12 weeks, Jeff Farmer had been forced to sit on the sidelines watching his team mates centre the ball from the pocket, go back behind their mark to take kicks, refuse to try and draw a fifty metre penalty from the goal square and celebrate the achievements with all the flair of Tony Barber’s trousers. 12 gruelling weeks of missing the excitement of the contest, the accolades of the crowd and the free lollies after the game. It must have been rough.

It had been a long 12 weeks for Fremantle supporters too. Three months had passed and they hadn’t seen one reverse banana torpedo or look-away upside down handpass.
So they flocked to Subiaco Oval to see The Wiz’s return in what was the most anticipated Fremantle even since Daniel Metropolis’s retirement.

But it was a bit of an anti-climax for most. Fremantle put through goal after goal. Des Headland put through two goals, Brendon Fevola was benched in the opening five minutes for giving away  couple of fifty metre penalties, Pav put one through after fixing up his kicking during the break and Carlton even had time to fight back and dob a couple of their own.

It was all a bit of a yawn though. Jeff Farmer hadn’t had a kick. There were people waiting with banners ready to wave, young kids and foreigners who’d only heard tales of The Wiz’s magical deeds and thousands of others who refused to take their eyes off him in case he did something brilliant. Then finally it happened.

Scott Thornton got hold of the ball in the centre of the ground and, unable to bolt through the pack of Carlton players, he booted the cover off it to get it down Fremantle’s end. The ball hit the deck as the Carlton defenders tried to rape Des Headland, and so The Wiz swooped.

He grabbed the ball of the ground, slid under one Carlton player, sold the blind turn to another, handpassed in front of himself, picked it up again, jumped over another Carlton player, froze time while hovering in midair Keanu Reeves style, then restarted time and kicked the goal before he landed.

They heard the roar of the crowd all the way in Tambellup (although that might have been because the pub there had the game live on the tv). The celebrations were loud and they were long. Unfortunately, by the time everyone had settled themselves back down again, they looked up at the scoreboard and realised Carlton had just kicked three goals. Apparently the umpires had stitched Fremantle up while they still joining in on the group hug and given the Blues three easy goals.

After looking like they were going to have the game sewn up very early, when the quarter time siren sounded, Fremantle were somehow 7 points down.

Chris Connolly was furious. He stormed down from the coach’s box and laid out the law. Goal celebrations were to be kept to a maximum of two minutes, victory runs were only to last for 40 metres, no more than three people were allowed to get involved in any one hug and, if you were going to climb into the crowd, don’t go more than three rows in. They were basic team rules and the coach couldn’t believe as this stage of the club’s development these blokes weren’t adhering to them.

Shocked and a little bit humbled, Fremantle returned to the ground for the second quarter a lot more focussed. When Jeff Farmer marked the ball deep in the pocket and kicked a geometry defying banana kick through for a goal, they were quite restrained in their celebrations – just two minutes later they were straight back to business.

It was important move by the players because, with they way Carlton were playing, they were going to need every last drop of their energy…otherwise, there was every chance they were going to get to the last quarter and not have enough energy left for even a three way high five.

In fact, with what followed, if they carried on too much they weren’t going to make it to half time. It was a Jeff Farmer inspired goal kicking bonanza. Stompy Dodd started it off with a hesitant effort (after the way his cousin’s career was ended) but Peter Bell didn’t even have time to flinch as he snapped the sort of goal that’s description traditionally has ended with “sets sail for home”. Matthew Pavlich got in on the action, giving his recalibrated laser guided boot a couple more outings before Scott Thornton brought down a screamer, then kicked the Dockers tenth goal.

It was quickly becoming apparent why the Carlton Blues had shown up in an all white uniform – it was a pre-emptive shellacking. They hadn’t even looked like scoring. The Dennis Pagan promise not to flood had quickly been forgotten and they still weren’t able to stop the F-R-E-O Speedwagon from rolling on.

In the end, the Freo players started to feel sorry for them and gave Hartlett a charity goal just before the half time siren. It ate into their lead slightly but they still went into the change with a 25 point lead and any self belief Carlton may have had left firmly in their pockets.

But despite their dominance, Fremantle weren’t home yet. Like your average tv show serial killer, Fremantle are good at killing people but often they don’t dig deep enough when it comes to burying them. The challenge was to put their good sported, gentle natured selves behind them and see if they could make Dennis Pagan the second coach to be given a large payout and a cushy commentary job (the other challenge was to see how many jelly snakes Jeff Farmer could get through during the half time before they took the bowl of lollies away).

A triumphant 17 and a handful of jelly babies was the answer to the first challenge and it didn’t take long for Fremantle to start standing up to the second one either.  In the opening minute, Des Headland had picked out Dean Solomon at full forward and the goals started to flow again.

Solomon put his through and Matthew Carr followed it up with one from the goal line after picking up the benefits of a fifty metre penalty. Farmer tried to get a fifty to add a bit of excitement to a run of the mill mark before slotting through his third. 

Fremantle moved out to double Carlton’s score and the calculators were being brought out to try and work out just how many more goals were needed to get Fremantle into the 8 (and also to spell out BOOBS). As it turned out, they needed to kick about 60 goals – over three weeks - but that wasn’t going to stop the always ambitious and mathematically challenged Freo players from having a crack at it.

In a tribute to a fallen Docker, Antoni Grover ran the length of the ground, having one bounce for every bone Brett Peake has broken, before jailing his first. Then Jeff Farmer stole the ball out of the centre, goosified half a dozen Blues and set the ball up for Matthew Pavlich to bring down a one handed mark – with the other being used to rub salt into Carlton’s gaping wound.

Distracted when someone in the crowd finally worked out that you type in 58008 then hold the calculator upside down, Fremantle let Fisher kick Carlton’s first goal of the half but they quickly controlled their giggling and got back to slotting goals through at will.  

 Des Headland and David Mundy popped some through on the run to stretch the lead out to 10 goals and the crowd were getting pretty excitable but The Wiz set his sights on the goals once more, there were supporters going into fits of hysteria that can traditionally only be stopped by a Catholic priest and a large tarpaulin.

After shaking off two would be tacklers, a Carlton player finally got a hand to him, grabbing his foot and tripping him to the ground. The umpire’s hadn’t forgotten Jeff and still refused to pay the free kick, so he jumped back to his feet, gave a wink to the crowd and screwed the ball off the outside of his boot,  slotting the ball straight through the centre of the goals. Team rules were damned as blokes ran from all corners of the ground to hug him for that one. The Freeeee-ooooooooo chant rang out and there must have been Carlton players wondering if the day was going to end in them being used in some sort of ritual sacrifice.

The quarter should have ended on that piece of football magic but the umpires gave a mysterious fifty metre penalty after the siren which let Waite kick one while Fremantle players were ducking out to have a few bucks on themselves for the flag.

A four goal quarter, a six goal quarter then an eight goal quarter – they had two options. They could pull up stumps, ease off and try and keep themselves fresh for the game against Sydney in a week’s time or, they could kick 10 goals and punish Carlton for poaching Troy Longmuir off them. Chris Connolly put it to a vote and, for those who didn’t get the final tally, there wasn’t much doubt where they were headed when Shane Parker was set up in front of goals in the opening minutes of the quarter.

Like the born forward most have always suspected he is, Parker went through a routine that made Matthew Lloyd look like meerkat with an amphetamine addiction, before sending the ball sailing over the top of the goal umpires head.

With Shane Parker kicking goals it was a wonder Carlton didn’t just pack up their gear and catch the early flight home. To their credit though, they hung around, even after Ryan Murphy started to take marks and kick his goal.  Heath Black got in on the action with his traditional 60 metre, raking left foot sealer and from there on it was every gets a goal day.  Headland, Bell, Thornton. The weather had stayed clear but it was officially raining goals. When the time keeper finally put Carlton out of their misery, the difference was a massive 77 points with the only job left for the Fremantle players being to make sure Jeff Farmer got home to bed alright.