It was hot at Subiaco Oval. Very hot. The sort of heat that makes everyone walk around like they’re Justin Longmuir, loping about with such a air of laidbackishness that insomniacs lay in bed at night trying to imagine him counting sheep in a desperate attempt to fall asleep. The two teams ran out from their air conditioned change rooms to a wall of heat and very few people would have been surprised to see Jeff Farmer wander out in a pair of Maseur Sandals, Brett Peake with a surf board under his arm or Simon Prestigiacomo with a hanky with the corners knotted sitting on his head.
Sadly, they stuck to the traditional boots and jumpers but they couldn’t hide the fact that they were feeling the heat, with players breaking out in sweaty lathers during the warm up and Luke McPharlin’s gel failing to hold for the firs time in his football career. It wasn’t going to matter though, after the way Fremantle dispatched the Eagles in the first round of the pre-season comp, it was going to be a quick frenzy of goal scoring followed by a couple of hours of going through the motions until it was time to sing the Freo Heave Ho song.
That was the plan. Unfortunately the game started out more in the fashion of a ride home from the beach on a hot day with a car full of kids you didn’t buy an ice cream for. Scrappy, messy stuff with a bit of spite and plenty of nasty streaks. It was a tough battle of wills with messy execution in attack and desperate hanging on in defence.
Even when Leon Davis got the scoreboard moving with a 9 point goal from 60 metres out on the boundary, it was a lazy looking bomb to the square that bounced through because the Freo defenders couldn’t get their thongs on in time to run back to the goal line.
With the players looking laconic and things a bit on the slow side, it came as no surprise that Paul Hasleby would start to look sharp. Laconic is his middle name (well one of them, his full name is Paul Laconic Stocky Footballer Milhouse Hasleby) and when Josh Carr saw him meandering into an open forward line he put the ball down his throat. Hasleby popped it through and Freo had their first major on the board.
A dodgy free kick saw Leon Davis kick his second but the players were starting to adapt to the conditions a bit better and the tempo was lifting. Matthew Carr burst out of the centre to drill a pass onto the chest of Matthew Pavlich and bring the crowd to their feet. Pav played on from the fifty and sent the ball forward where Jlo showed them all how things are done, casually plucking down a pack mark before wandering in and kicking the Dockers second.
There was no man on man kissing after Longmuir kicked this goal but when the ball went back to the centre, there was plenty of body on body action as Collingwood tried to see how many blokes they could get to stand around the ball at any given time. The result was that the rest of the ground opened up and, when the Dockers got clear of the Magpie love-in, they turned back to the free flowing footy that sent the Eagles into crisis mode a week earlier.
A magnificent kick from Paul Medhurst across the centre of the ground set Murphy up to drive the ball long into the Dockers forward line and, when he did, Shooter McPharlin goosified a pack of Magpies and pulled down an easy mark. Perfecting his puppet on a string style of kicking, McPharlin’s kick was a beauty and Freo took back the lead.
But as the ball sailed over the umpires head and the clock ticked over to the twenty minute mark, it was as if the players decided it was time for a bit of cordial and the hot weather, kids-in-the-back-of-the-car footy came back into vogue. A few laps of the oval later the siren went and they got their wish, with Fremantle going into the break 3 points the better side.
The breeze was starting to pick up to the point where the cricket commentators would have used the phrase ‘Fremantle Doctor” 47 times, Collingwood had their ice vests on and the Fremantle players were standing in Aaron Sandilands shadow (much like Dean Cox last week) so the players were starting to get their core temperature down to prepare for another hour and a half of this torture. But, when they got moving again, they still looked like a bunch of blokes who had decided to stay in the car park because they couldn’t be bothered carrying the esky down to the beach.
There was however, a bloke who looked more like he was trying to navigate a carpark in bare feet. Jeff Farmer was jumping from white line to white, trying to avoid the hot bitumen and running amok in the process. So when the ball landed in the forward line, he headed towards it like he’d seen a blue disabled parking bay line, and took half the Collingwood team with him in the process. Then, he cleverly missed the ball completely, allowing Paul Medhurst to pick it up from the back of the pack and snap a belter.
It seemed like the sort of thing that would signal the beginning of a run of goals for Fremantle but there’s one thing you can always count on when Micky Malthouse comes to town – he’s going to plug the gaps, slow the play down and do his utmost to try and spoil a good game of footy with defence. As a result, an umpire sympathetic to Josh Fraser vis-à-vis the rapid deterioration of his hair, handed out a free kick at a boundary throw in and Josh was lucky enough to kick a soft goal.
Thankfully, Mick’s drudgery is no match for a little bloke the world like to call The Wiz and Jeff Farmer livened things up with the old give-it-off-while-you’re-out-of-range-then-bolt-for-the-goal-square manoeuvre. He gave it off to Josh Carr and headed forward, Josh obliged him with a delightful little chip kick and The Wiz brought the banana goal out for the first time year.
The Dockers seemed well in control but the scoreboard didn’t seem to back that story up. They were winning all over the ground but they were only 10 points in front and, when Leon Davis dobbed another one after a suspicious free kick, things were far too close for comfort (things were far too hot for comfort too but that’s another matter).
That’s how things continued. Crowley kicked a well set up goal for Freo, and Collingwood clawed it back. Farmer kicked an inspired goal that brought supporters from both sides to their feet and Tarrant jagged one from the pocket for Collingwood. The Dockers just couldn’t shake them, going into half time a mere 6 points in front but having looked the better side for most of the afternoon.
Collingwood were a bit late returning to the ground for the second half. Apparently they had heard the rumours that the Eagles change rooms on the other side of the ground are fitted out with water slides, an ice sculptor on 24 hour call and an all you can eat Mr Whippy van. No one would confirm or deny if the Magpies discovered the Eagles palace but they were looking pretty pleased with themselves when they finally ran onto the ground and there were suggestions that Shane O’Bree looked to have the remnants of a Choc 99 over his face. Either way, it was Fremantle who came out looking the most refreshed and the unstoppable Jeff Farmer had Mick Malthouse furrowing his brow with concern and contempt very early in proceedings. He was robbed of a mark in the pocket when the umpire was blinded by the reflection of Josh Frasers forehead but the resulting ball up saw The Wiz collect the ball from the back of the ruck knock, run around onto his right foot and snap a goal with all the conviction of a man who’d just been crucified by the umpires and had had e-bloody-nough.
Back in the middle and Fremantle started to take control of the game. They had a rough time of it when they got it forward though with the Collingwood players either dropping back to plug the gaps or too lazy to return to the centre after Farmer’s last goal. Eventually, Justin Longmuir picked up the ball, blind turned out of traffic and swept a Voss like handpass over to Shaun McManus. Knowing every post has to be a convincing winner, Macca wasted no time at all and unloaded with a massive bomb to bring up Fremantle’s ninth goal.
Momentum seemed to be building for the Dockers but, as Collingwood got the ball to go their way from the centre square, it became very apparent that Fremantle haven’t been playing with a backline. Shane Parker aside, the complete absence of a key defender had gone unnoticed against the Eagles but without Haddrill, Thornton or Polak, they were a bit thin on players down there. It seemed to be a fact that was lost on Collingwood for the first half but they started to go long into attack and things started to turn their way.
Tarrant and Lonie put through a couple of quick goals, Lonnie’s a 9 pointer, and all of a sudden the Magpies had hit the front. A bit of magic from The Wiz saw him try to utilize the lessons Alana Slater had given the forward line, by doing a triple summersault with a twist to try and kick the ball over his head, had Fremantle peg one back (he buggered it up magnificently but Walker was there to kick crumb the goal) but a quick reply from Dale Thomas and an even quicker follow up by Ben Johnson had the angry murmurs doing the rounds of Subiaco Oval.
Fremantle were under the pump for the first time this pre-season. The defence was under all sorts of pressure and the quaint umpiring decisions were starting to become costly. Talkback radio announcers were warming up their vocal cords, conceited newspaper editors were looking for photos of Jeff Farmer looking angry and chubby real estate agents were wondering why they didn’t have more than a few dozen mates who could write their name. But there’s an old Billy Ocean song ‘Get Out of My Dreams and Into My Car’. There’s also a more appropriate Billy Ocean song one about the tough getting going and, while we all know Matthew Pavlich is big fan of all of Billy’s back catalogue, it was that second tune that he seemed to take to heart on this occasion.
A bit of Pavtastic work in the pocket, ducking and weaving through hapless Magpies, had the ball find it’s way into Ryan Crowley’s hands and a fifty metre penalty for walking over the mark saw Crowley dob his second for the day. Then, cutting out the middle man, Pav marked and goaled from just inside fifty to put the Dockers back in the lead at the last change. It was like the hand of God coming to down to sort out all the wrong in the world. He’d kept to himself for most of the day but when he was really needed he showed up to sort out the mess. Supporters were looking up to the sky to see if he’d left them a rainbow as well.
There were no icecreams for Collingwood during the break this time so it was going to come down to which team could cope with the conditions best. When Fremantle waltzed out of the centre and Matthew Carr was lining himself up for a goal in the opening minute, it looked as though the Dockers were going to do it easy but, once again, the Magpies didn’t know when to lie down. Carr missed the goal, letting Collingwood run the ball up the ground where O’Bree was able to kick a goal out of the same place Mick Malthouse had spent the week talking out of. The Pies got within 2 points and the Dockers were back under the proverbial pump.
Of course, all that meant was that Matthew Pavlich started humming his Billy Ocean songs again and a towering mark over a couple of Collingwood stooges saw him kick a steadier and put the Magpies back in their tree. The Wiz snapped one more banana to give all the kids something to talk about in the car on the way home and Fremantle cruised home to win by 16 points.
