It doesn’t happen very often but Chris Connolly made a mistake going into the match against Richmond. Worried his players would take the winless Tigers lightly, the Dockers coach decided that they would prepare for the match like they were playing the top of the ladder side. In itself it seemed a sound strategy to combat complacency but he made a crucial error – he told the media.
Once the idea was out in the public domain, others started top get on board and things got out of control. Reading, writing and comprehension isn’t generally considered to be amongst the skill set of the average Tigers supporter and, once they heard the news they were the top of the ladder side, they flocked to the ground in droves.
When the people of Subiaco heard there were thousands of Fremantle supporters on their way mixed with hundreds of filthy feral Richmond fans, one of them put down their rose clippers, had a stiff white wine and called in a bomb threat to the train station try and keep them out.
Worse still, the side on the top of the ladder when Chris Connolly let the cat out of the bag was the West Coast Eagles. Running late because of the stopped trains, the umpires hadn’t had time to check the fixtures. All they’d heard was that Fremantle were playing the top of the ladder side. So, when they finally beat their way through the traffic and made it into the centre of the ground, they assumed it was against the Eagles and umpired accordingly.
The first three contests saw three free kicks go Richmond’s way, giving Fremantle a fair idea of what they could expect for the day. Richmond managed to put through a goal and a couple of points from the charity before Fremantle got a chance to see any of the footy.
Matthew Pavlich showed a some of the unselfish play that’s not only made him a household name but a man with a job, to set Des Headland up for Fremantle’s first goal but it was an up hill struggle with their ability to contest the footy being severely hamstrung by the men in green.
The AFL equalisation policy was well and truly in effect. Technically both sides were playing under the same set of rules it’s just that Fremantle were getting the 1955 interpretations and Richmond getting the benefits of the 2007 version.
Hands on the back with a lighter touch than a professional pickpocket were given for the Tigers while Matthew Pavlich was treated like a ventriloquists dummy at the other end for no reward. Pattison was treating Aaron Sandilands like a stripper’s pole while Matthew Richardson seemed to have been given a free kick Gold Pass after his run in with Essendon a few weeks earlier. If they weren’t so laid back and good natured, Fremantle supporters would have been jumping the fence. There wren’t howver, any shortage of offers of a lift to the nearest bomb threatened train station.
The Tigers were giddy with the excitement of it all. Some of them were even starting to think they were a top of the ladder side. Knowing they couldn’t be touched and Fremantle couldn’t contest the ball, they started to grow in confidence and, while they weren’t quite running rings around Freo, they certainly got in a few semi circles and put on three more goals –only two of which were directly assisted by the umpires.
When the quarter time siren sounded, the Fremantle crowd were in a bit of shock. People had booked restaurants with the expectation of the mercy rule being invoked sometime early in the second quarter. It was bad enough that they weren’t going to make their reservation but Fremantle were getting done.
Twenty points the difference and Fremantle had hardly even had a crack. They looked lethargic, disinterested and they were scared to go after the footy for fear of being pinged by the umpires. But even taking all that into account, they still should have been winning. Chris Connolly didn’t want to panic though. He maintained the illusion that Richmond were a top side, gave the boys a bit of a confidence boosting rev up, told them to stick to their guns and try and win the quarter.
They came out a different side. Not a better one, just a different one. They were running harder and showing plenty of enthusiasm but the umpires still weren’t onside and Terry Wallace’s continuing efforts to ruin football as we know it was giving them a few problems.
The Tigers seemed to be keen to try and bottle the game up and defend their lead for the next three quarters, having some supporters wondering if they’d shown up on the wrong day and stumbled into a game of Rugby. After ten minutes of end to end scrummages, even the Tigers players had had enough of it and Chris Hyde broke ranks. He ran down the boundary line with the footy, just to close the angle, then made a terrible mistake – hi kicked the goal.
A brilliant goal from either team was going to get the crowd excited and, in the Jeff Farmer pocket, they like a spekky goal more than anywhere else in the country. So after half a quarter of Wallace boredom, the suddenly sprang back to life. There was atmosphere – excitement. The players felt it too. The waltzed the ball out of the centre and ran it into the forward line. Pav took a screamer, gave the ball off to Chris Tarrant without a thought of his own personal gain, and Tarrant kicked Freo’s second goal of the match.
The umpires were quick to react and set Tambling up for his second goal but all that did was get the crowd angry as well as excited. They revved up the Freo players once more and when the ball got back to the centre it went straight out and into the hands of Chris Tarrant. It wasn’t the best of his efforts but the Freo forwards refused to concede the footy without at least a goal for their efforts. Soon enough, Matthew Pavlich was unselfishly passing off another goal to a team mate, this time Des Headland, to help his side get the margin back under 20 points.
With Fremantle finally scoring, Richmond threw the flood back into overdrive. It was time to call in Brett “Noah” Peake - named so because he wears two boots made from every kind of animal. This week it looked like he was wearing a pair of Zebra leather numbers which would have been what caught Shaun McMnaus’s eyes as he shook off another whack to the head to dish out a hand pass to the purple, black and white streak moving down the ground at an alarming pace. Peake took the ball at the edge of the square and managed to get in half a dozen bounces before he unloaded from the fifty for Freo’s 4th.
Despite Fremantle’s rapid resurgence, the siren wasn’t far away and Fremantle were still 13 points behind the odds on favourites for the wooden spoon. The plan had failed. Treating these blokes like they were a good side was a complete failure.
Not one to be proud, Chris Connolly took action. Once the siren had sounded, he wandered down to the change rooms a couple of minutes late in thongs, a singlet and a pair of stubbies, a fag hanging out his mouth. He gave the players an uninspiring chat about how useless the Tigers were and they’d better bloody well beat them or he’d have to turn off the Galaga machine in the players lounge for a couple of weeks. Then he sculled a jug of Powerade and wandered back up to the box.
The man is a motivational genius. Fremantle returned a new side. A freak breeze saw an early one go the way of Richmond but from then on it was the Freo show – featuring the Des Headland Experience. Des slotted one through from the pocket, then he worked his way up the ground to put the footy into the hands of David Mundy at full forward. Taking to his knew role as part time glamour forward, Mundy went back and dobbed the goal to get Freo within a kick.
True to form, the umpires levelled the scores but Dessy refused to be denied. He pulled down a screamer in the goal square, could have taken an easy shot from the goal square but decided to give the crowd something special, so he ran into the Jeff Farmer pocket and roosted one 50 metres into the air and three metres through the goals. It’s was just seconds before the ball had found him again and, when he kicked his fifth the scores were levelled.
It was just about breaking point for the Tigers. They’d had a good run and lead all day but Fremantle were on the charge now and loss number 10 was looking likely.
But like the call of the Spotted Pardalote three quick chirps from the men in Green had them back in the scorebook, with Matthew Richardson pulling out his Gold Card to take the Tigers back into the lead.
Some sides would have dropped their bundle but the Fremantle players took their anger out on the Richmond players. Anything yellow and black was getting tackled, hit or having their face imprinted into the turf. So focussed were they in dishing out retribution that Peter Bell nearly ran afoul of his life threatening bee allergy.
And while the Richmond coaching staff had their hands busy applying bandages, Chris Connolly pulled out another master stroke. With the sun setting it was hard to see to the west so, in a cunning ploy, Fremantle sent Scott Thornton down into the forward line. Using his congenital albinism to his advantage, the sun reflected off him and into the eyes of any defender who tried to look down the ground. When Tarrant kicked the ball long into the forward line, none of the Richmond players even knew Thornton was standing there. All they saw was a big bright light. He kicked the goal and levelled the scores again.
The berp berp berp sound saw the ball cleared from the centre by the umpires once again and, despite Richmond clearly looking like a side on the ropes, Pettifer kicked a goal to keep them alive once again. But the Thornton trap was still set and, as the Tigers defenders tried to make the most of a suspicious free kick they’d been given, an unseen Thornton plucked the ball from its intended path returned the earlier favour to Tarrant and Fremantle went into the last change a point in front.
There was a bit more spring in the steps of the Freo players as the returned to their huddle for three quarter time, and not just because Brett Peake had switched to the frog skin boots. They’d hit the front for the first time in the match, they were playing well, kicking goals and they knew the Tigers were staring down a long record of last quarter fade outs. All they needed was a good start and the Tigers would be dropping off like skin flakes from Terry Wallace’s face after a stint in the solarium.
What they didn’t need was another quick goal going to the Tigers. A bit of magic from Howat had Freo supporters starting to worry. No free kicks, no flooding, maybe Richmond had just been cruising. What if they rolled Fremantle in the last quarter. It was just about time to start murmuring…then Pav stepped in.
He got on the end of a Scott Thornton bomb that seemed to magically appear from nowhere, then strolled in for his first of the day. He watched on as Heath Black gave Freo their biggest lead of the match with his traditional last quarter goal from outside fifty. He unloaded from Malcom Blight distance to bring up his second goal and stretch Freo’s lead to 10 points. He split through a pack of ten Tigers and when the ball spilled Garrick Ibbotson was there to slot it through, unfazed, for a goal in his first game. Then, when he’d had enough of it all and decided the game needed to be won, he stood his ground in the goal square and brought down the footy while Richmond players hung off him like a set of monkey bars with a really big nose. He put the final nail in the Richmond coffin with an easy goal and Fremantle waited out the clock to win by 21 points.
