Victorians. Someone should blow them up.^*

Fremantle had had nothing but trouble since they arrived in the place. Neil Danaher was whinging about his club having to go a hundred metres up the road to train because the Dockers were having a run light on the ground so they’d know what it the place looked like; Mick Malthouse was carrying on like a pork chop about Fremantle’s trading and how great things were without Chris Tarrant around; the drunks down at Channel 7 were running promos about the handful of times Chris Tarrant has missed a goal this year; the tea cosy wearing mental patient that the supporters decided was their best and brightest was in the ear of every news outfit, telling the country how they were going to exceed their usual high standard of feralness; and that's all without mentioning the cold weather and the general stench of the place.

But, they say it's character building to go to third world places and count your blessings you don't have to live there. So Fremantle kept their heads down until it was time to rock up to the white elephant of Australian sport - the MCG.

As they huddled together before the bounce, Peter Bell took the honours in revving the boys up. He’d spent too much of his career in Melbourne and knew the best thing was just to get it over as quickly as possible. Get the goals on the ball, win the game and get home before the smell of the local derelicts being kicked out of the pubs wafted over the ground.

So when the ball was bounced to start the game, Aaron Sandiland closed his eyes, thought of Fremantle and thumped the ball in the direction of the goals. Josh Carr picked it up, gave it to Des Headland. Headland gave Pavlich the lace out sponsors logo to the camera treatment and Fremantle had a goal on the board in the opening minute.

They didn’t waste much time getting the ball back into Pav’s hands either. A minute later he was lining up from 35 metres out on a bit of an angle but here must have been a bit of dew on the ball because he missed, causing statisticians all around the ground calling for the liquid paper. Not being a one man side though, the blokes up the ground won it back, brought it forward again and Mundy snapped a beauty.

Not ones for usually starting with a flurry, this was a different Fremantle than we’d seen in the first nine rounds. This was the premiership team. Sandilands was swatting the ball out of the air, the midfielders were getting first hands on the ball and they were running like a Collingwood supporter from the scene of a crime. Showing the skills of Josh Fraser’s barber, they ran the ball down the ground like a well oiled machine, pumping the ball long into the forward line where they were just letting themselves down slightly as the forwards adjusted to the unfamiliar ground and quirky winds of a Victorian stadium with people in it.

Fremantle were making Collingwood look like chumps. All signs were pointing to a complete route.

Then the umpires stepped in. Two free kicks, each softer than the other saw the ball move from a Fremantle attack into a Rocca shot from point blank range. He didn’t look the gift horse in the mouth and Fremantle ticked off one of the seven goals they’d budgeted the umpires would give Collingwood.

There was no stopping them though. Paul Hasleby had the ball on a bit of elastic and seemed to be able to read Sandiland’s mind at the ball ups. Another bit of Mundy Magic in the forward line saw him bring up his best ever goal kicking figures and the large contingent of Fremantle fans, who’d made the sacrifice of going to Victoria, started up the Freeee-oooooo chant.

Fremantle’s dominance continued for the quarter, with their inability to get their goal kicking accuracy rate into double digits their only issue.  A couple of goals went Collingwood’s way against the flow but Ryan Crowley and Josh Carr were all class as they took Fremantle into the break with a 10 point lead.

It was champagne football by Fremantle. They looked at home playing at the MCG in front of a big crowd and were lapping it up.

Things picked up where they left off when the second quarter got underway. The circling Sharks in the centre square took the ball with them as they surged forward.  Tarrant put it up in the air, Pavlich crumbed it and slotted through from unmissable range.

The crowd erupted as Fremantle brought exciting football to Victoria for the first time in years. They were quick, they were tough, they were skilful, they were entertaining  – Micky Malthouse hated it.  He got on the advertising billboard with the telephone attached to it and sent the message out to Malthouse things up.

So the Collingwood players set about bottling up the game, slowing it down and testing out just how far the umpires would let things go before paying Fremantle a free kick (they never found out). Goals became hard to come by and, eventually, Collingwood ground out a couple as Fremantle’s time and space started to become hard to find.

But holding Fremantle down was just allowing their excitement levels to build up. Eventually they exploded. Antoni Grover came storming out of defence with half a dozen Collingwood players on his tail. He let fly with a 70 metre drop punt across the ground to Brett Peake. Despite only weighing in at 65kg, Peake threw himself into one of the Shaws, knocked him to the ground, dished out a handpass to Ryan Crowley and Crowley unloaded with a 97 metre kick on the boundary line that made Malcolm Blight look like a limp wristed, malnourished Ethiopian kid who’d never seen a footy in his life.

The locals couldn’t remember seeing anything like it. The game started to open up again as Fremantle regained momentum. Their defence was making a mockery of what Collingwood were calling a forward line and their midfield looked like the biggest, fasted bunch of little slow blokes ever assembled. If they had been able to stop their forwards over thinking the whole goal kicking concept they would have been able to wrap up the game and head back to their electric blankets in Freo.

Unfortunately a lot of money had been spent on messing with the Fremantle forwards’ heads and, despite Fremantle dominating the play around the ground, the two sides went goal for goal to the siren taking  Fremantle into the half time break with their lead cut back to one goal.

The Freo players would have returned to the change rooms with a bit of a smile on their face. They’d beaten all the tradition hoodoos -  Friday night football, travelling to Melbourne, playing under a full moon and playing in weather that has even seen penguins forgoing the fashionable tux for a sensible knitted jumper.  They were in front, playing great footy and on their way to a memorable win.

Chris Connolly on the other hand was ropeable. So angry he couldn’t even get the swear words out. He had to pause every couple of words and let Steve Malaxos throw in a bit of swearing for him (apparently it was a promotion for Stavros). The Collingwood players should have been walking off the ground with their heads down and their knuckles dragging along the ground but, because Fremantle hadn’t put them away, they had their heads held high and their knuckles dragging along the ground.  Freo had thrown a fair bit at the Magpies and keeping up the pace for another half was going to be tough work if they couldn’t start scoring.

The players had a think about it and, when they came back out to start the second half, they looked like a bunch of blokes who had just been told they weren’t as good as they thought they were. They lost a bit of run and flair and the game threatened to spiral into a classic Malthouse scrap, helped along on by the umpires forgetting about the holding the ball rule once again. Fremantle decided to act.

The rare case of Temporary Tourettes Syndrome brought on specifically by a man in a black and white vest holding his arms in the air, that had taken hold of Matthew Pavlich, was making it difficult for Fremantle to kick goals so they decided they’d have to concede some to the opposition to keep the game flowing.

It took a while for Collingwood to catch on but, eventually, they started to put some through. Three, in fact, before Shaun McManus said enough was enough and decided to snap the likely goal of the year for a thirty year old man with tight blonde curls.

They’d conceded the lead, given Collingwood a couple of goals in and the game was back on. The MCG sprung to life as the supporters got a sense that the best game of the year was unfolding before them, with talk of traditional rivals getting a brief run amongst the Collingwood crowd (just before the alcohol effected speech functions).

Ben Johnson kicked a handy goal for Collingwood from the fifty before The Peter Bell Experience slotted one through on the run - highlighting just how much pressure was on the players when he didn’t come up with a dodgy celebration.

With not much more than a minute left on the clock, normally Mick would have called for the brake to be released so his side could go into full reverse but he’d lost control of his players. They were playing football. They were liking it. Fremantle fancied their chances to kick a goal under those conditions but Collingwood got the break out of the centre. Medhurst booted the ball long but Michael Johnson looked to have it covered. Then, from nowhere, Leon Davis flew over the top of him, hovered in the air for a while, then fell to the ground, and when he looked down the ball had somehow landed in his lap. He kicked the goal to the sound of the siren and Collingwood had a 13 point lead going into the last change.

The best finishing side in the league, Fremantle still fancied themselves to knock over Collingwood. Just to make sure, they stacked the forward line with McPharlin, Tarrant and Pavlich. It looked like a plan that was going to pay dividends early with the stretched Collingwood defence letting Pavlich mark the ball on his own, 40 metres out directly in front. But Pav was kicking like Michael J Fox after a six pack of Red Bull and the ball ricocheted off his boot for another behind.

Luckily there were plenty of other options. Sandilands has been working on a little pet project for the entire season. The idea is simple. He grabs the ball out of the ruck, throws it on his boot and kicks a goal. Where it falls over is that, because he’s big, the umpires feel it’s fair for the opposition to hang onto his limbs as he tries to kick.

But with Collingwood players holding onto the limbs of Tarrant, Pavlich and McPharlin, there weren’t enough left to molest Sandilands this time around and, when he grabbed it out of the ruck and snapped it, the ball bounced through for a goal.

Fremantle were within a goal. They were warming up and the bookies were winding in their price (other bookies were digging out fake passports after Freo types had unloaded at the $2.60 early in the week). It was only a matter of time before the goals started to flow.

 

But even with so many options, Fremantle would go forward half a dozen times and put a couple of points through, Collingwood would go forward and break with tradition by nailing it on the first attempt. Anthony Rocca couldn’t miss and even dobbed one from an angle – a sharp angle. Then Swan caught the Freo defenders in a brief but poorly timed stop working meeting (to discuss whether or not Shane Parker should be brought back as a specialist forward) and put the Magpies out to a 3 goal lead.

Time was no longer Fremantle’s friend but they refused to give in. They kept peppering the goals, any moment they were going to put through a couple
of quick ones. Pav started kicking straight and managed to guide tow in the general direction of the goals but bloody Sav Rocca’s brother was having the game of his life. He put through a fifth goal and Fremantle had run out of time.

 

*If Joe Thomas is reading this, it’s just an expression, mate.