Back in October when the AFL commission were sipping their cognac while drawing the 2007 fixtures out of Andrew Demetriou’s top hat, Port Adelaide were drawn to play in Perth in the opening round. Andrew put his monocle on so he could look up where Port Adelaide was in his Atlas, realised it wasn’t it Melbourne and decided it’d be a bit of a lark to abandon the policy of playing night games in WA for the first month of the season, and put them on in the middle of the afternoon.
And that’s how Fremantle supporters were treated a taste of the Caribbean as the Port Adelaide players, dressed teal blue, ran out to their calypso inspired theme song on a thirty degree autumn afternoon.
Ice creams and cold beers took the place of the tradition footy food of pies and, well, cold beers, as the fans battled to cope with a combination of warm weather and a refusal to remove their scarves, beanies and footy jumpers.
It was pretty hot on the field early, too. Josh Carr led the boys in the traditional post bounce punch on to fire themselves up but it didn’t take long for the umpires to throw a bucket of cold water on things. They were plucking free kicks out of thin air, using signals no one had even seen before and generally buggering up the sport. Like chaperones at a school dance for the Amish leper colony, the umpires were desperate to stop anyone touching each other.
The hard line policy didn’t have much effect though and Shaun Burgoyne took the attitude that ‘if they’re going to pay the free kick anyway, I may as well make it count’ putting Justin Longmuir’s spine through his stomach as he shoved him in the back. The free kick was paid down the ground and Josh Carr dobbed the first goal of the season.
Peter Bell was the next to cop the brunt of the Port Adelaide ‘let’s get out monies worth’ attitude. He nearly lost his head as he kicked the ball and Matthew Pavlich made the most of the down the ground free kick to bring up goal number two.
A soft free kick saw Port score their first goal but it was the Fremantle show all around the ground. The signs of a big season ahead for the Dockers were all theres as they took control of the match and battled on, despite the baffling work of the umpires. Aaron Sandilands was living up to Choco Williams’ high opinion of him, Shane Parker and the Parkerteers were having no trouble covering for their missing members, Josh Carr was keeping his spirits up despite his brother’s absence; and when Tarrant snapped his first Freo goal from 35 metres out, the two big forwards already had one each and it was only halfway through the first quarter.
Another free kick was paid to Daniel Motlop in Port’s forward line. Nanotechnology experts are still working with the video to try and find any contact on Motlop but it was too late to reverse the decision after Motlop kicked the goal.
There were no soft free kicks going Fremantle’s way. Proving that he fears nothing…except the sun’s harmful UV rays...a zinc wearing Dean Solomon hurled himself into the path of Kane Cornes (dangerous for more reasons than one when the Cornes family are concerned) was given a well deserved free kick and booted a 60 metre goal to stretch the Dockers lead back out to two goals.
The kick out of the centre should have seen it move out to three but Chris Tarrant made the mistake of breathing out onto Thurstan’s neck as he took the mark in front of goals and, for the good of the game, had the footy taken off him. The ball made its way down the ground with a series of farcical free kicks until Motlop finally kicked a goal on his own merits, albeit with the umpires doing a lot of the legwork for him.
That’s when Fremantle realised they had to take matters into their own hands. They adjusted their game plan to make sure they didn’t go anywhere near any Port Adelaide players. Running the ball clear in the middle and leaving the Port goons in their dust. It was a stroke of genius from the coach’s box and paid some handsome dividens. Solomon put through his second goal from outside fifty, Aaron Sandilands popped one though from the goal square, Duffield slotted one through from the Jeff Farmer pocket and, when Roger Hayden wandered forward to pick up his 5th career goal, the Freeeeee-ooooooo chant rang out for the earliest rendition in the Dockers 12 seasons.
When the siren went the game seemed all but over. Fremantle had come to win and Port to fulfil their contractual obligations to the AFL, and both were well on their way to doing it. The first quarter had taken its toll on the players though. A summer of running can never prepare the players for match intensity and more than a few of the boys were keen to hit the esky full of cordial.
Because of the heat, the trainers had been sent down to the Fremantle rooms to fetch buckets full of frozen blocks of water to pass out amongst the players but, when The Dockers returned to the ground, it seemed it might have been a better plan to go into the Eagles change rooms and pass around a bucket full of ice.
Freo came out for the second quarter looking very flat and lethargic. It may have been disillusionment with the state of the game as the umpires wasted little time building on the 21 free kicks they’d dished out in the first quarter, but they were going to need to snap out of it if they wanted that percentage boosting win to score the top of the ladder spot that was up for grabs.
Lade floated through a goal with the aid of a gust of wind but, with Port looking as laid back as Fremantle, it wasn’t enough to scare the Freo boys.
Pavlich found enough energy to give the Dockers the reply but it wasn’t inspiring footy as Port Adelaide invoked the midfield flood and took over from the umpires in making a mockery of the sport.
With the Port tactics and the umpiring reaching a softness level that made the cute, fluffy baby duck from the toilet paper commercial look like a hardened mafia hitman, it was understandable that a few of the Freo players started look a bit bored with it all. And, as their attention drifted to wondering if Megan Jordan would have a song about them on her new album (available on pre-order now), Port snuck through a couple more goals to peg back the margin to 16 points.
It was no coincidence that the two blokes who knew that they had songs about them were the first to make a move towards playing a bit of footy again. Paul Hasleby ripped the ball out of the centre, dodged his way around a handful of Port players before booting it long and high and into the arms of Matthew Pavlich. Pavlich had to deal with the irritating but common sound of Chad Cornes whining like a little girl as he kicked, but he doesn’t get paid the big dollars for nothing and the Freo skipper steadied the ship by kicking their 10th goal for the day.
The half time siren woke the rest of the Freo boys up and it was back off to the change rooms for a drink, some orange quarters and a mouthful of fruity language from their coach, explaining to them in his unique way that they needed to #@&#^ *&#^@& $#@!*&^ (#&@#&^ lift their *#&@^& !%@^* game.
The spray from the coach and the threats he made about their families and pets worked a treat. When Fremantle ran back onto the ground they look reinvigorated. They were chasing down the ball, riding the bumps, kicking long and playing with purpose. In three minutes they’d kicked a bigger score than the entire second quarter. The route was back on.
But, when Fremantle should have brought out the backhoe to bury Port, they relied on a couple of small trowels and a Graham Polak’s former dog Jasper, letting Port kick a couple of goals between rampages to stay within sight of the lead. Gradually Port pegged back more than Fremantle could kick and the route was looking more like a handy early season win.
Then disaster struck. Port Adelaide hit the luckiest streak of goal kicking seen at Subiaco Oval since the final in 2003 that is likely to be used as part of proceedings to have James Hird canonised.
They were kicking goals from the pockets, from 60 metres out, from 70 metre out from 60 metres out in the pocket. They couldn’t miss. People were rushing out of Subiaco Oval to put the players numbers onto a lotto ticket before the Saturday night draw. They would have kicked even more goals than they did but rabbits were starting to wear Port Adelaide players’ feet for good luck, making kicking difficult.
Fremantle’s comfortable lead was down the toilet. They were now staring down what could become an embarrassing loss.
They regrouped and started throwing everything they had at the Port players. Diving to the bottom of packs, chasing hard, throwing themselves at the contests – but all that did was raise the ire of the umpires. They were still on their anti-contact kick and making it difficult for Fremantle to play football.
Pav was playing on Chad Cornes so avoiding contact wasn’t going to be an issue. He flew into the air and pulled down a screamer, kicking his first official Captain’s Goal to get the Dockers within 3 points.
Unfortunately it didn’t take long for Pav’s good work to be undone and the umpires stepped in to push Port back out to three goal lead before the siren sounded and stopped the bleeding at 14 points.
If Fremantle thought they’d been given a serve at half time, they were in for some news at three quarter time. Chris Connolly brought out the Terry Wallace ‘spew up’ speech – but not the cleaned up version we all saw at the cinema. This was the version reworked by Quentin Tarantino. He actually brought Daniel Gilmore out to the ground just so he could shoot him to prove a point about zone defence.
Some will say he went too far, others, (particularly those who don’t like Gilmore) will say not far enough but he needed to do something to drag the players out of the shells and get them playing some passionate attacking footy again. If he couldn’t, the plan of an undefeated season on top of the ladder was going to be in ruins.
Signs were good early when Cockshell tried to kick a goal off his wrong foot from the pocket – not because he had the shot or because Shane Parker was able to tackle him without giggling but because the ball flew across the face of the goals and landed out of bounds. Their luck had finally run out.
Sadly, the luck hadn’t found its way to Fremantle, with Pavlich hitting the post from 15 metre out on a tight angle. They kept on fighting, tough, and a bit of scintillating footwork from Paul Hasleby had the Dockers back on the attack and Ryan Crowley was soon celebrating a fantastic goal from what he is now telling people was just short of the centre square.
They were still two straight kicks and a couple of slightly askew ones away from the lead so there wasn’t a lot of time for the celebrations. As they cleared the ball out of the centre, a long high kick went to full forward and, as he flew for the ball, Pavlich brushed the top of Wakelin’s head. Wakelin hit the deck like a sack full of potatoes that was staging for a free kick.
In the new world of soft frees and over umpiring, Port Adelaide had spent a lot of time in the off season practicing that great South Australian art of staging for free kicks and Wakelin was putting weeks of training into effect, staying down until he saw the umpire pull the book out to report Pavlich.
Even that couldn’t stop Fremantle and they fought back to get the ball in the capable hands of Pavlich once again. But poor Pav had his mind on what the tribunal had done to his team mates in recent weeks and, when a slightly askew kick would have helped, the very much askew kick he gave was no help at all.
It proved a costly miss for the Dockers with the Power running the ball down the ground to kick goal number 17 and giving Fremantle a lot of work to do with not much time in the bank.
When Rodan made it goal number 18 it was looking unlikely and Ebert making it 19 ended Fremantle’s day. They fought it out to kick one more goal but still finished 16 points down forcing them to settle on just 21 wins for the home & away season.
