It's been a controversial week for WA football. The Eagles gave their captain the flick after he decided to engage in a late night semi-streak through Applecross and Fremantle launched their new marketing campaign featuring the first man on man kiss to appear in a football membership advertisement that didn't include a Hawthorn player. They also unveiled the new slogan to go with the ads "I had a pash on" which has the Fred Nile gang threatening to boycott all Dockers matches and the Anglican church trying to ordain Justin Longmuir.

But the great thing about footy is that all the shenanigans that go on from Monday to Friday are forgotten when the first ball is bounced on a Saturday afternoon - or in this case, on the traditional Sunday evening in February.

There were a lot of new sites as the two teams returned to the footy ground for the 2006 season. The thing living on Ryan Murphy's head had died, Paul Medhurst was wearing the number 6, Ben Cousins was wearing a shirt, and the umpires were kitted out in Granny Smith green - and not surprisingly because they were umpiring like old women. Three mystery free kicks in the opening couple of minutes gave the Eagles their traditional charity goal to start the derby.

It didn't take long for Fremantle to hit their stride though. They ran the ball through the middle of the ground almost unopposed as if all of the Eagles players had seen a copper. Paul Hasleby marked inside fifty but, rushed by the new thirty second rule, his kick didn't have the carry. Luckily, Jlo was lurking in the goal square and he took an easy mark, put the ball straight over the goal umpires head and the crowd went the celebratory pash in scenes resembling something out of an episode of Queer as Folk.

Jeff Farmer was penalised with fifty metres after an altercation with Daniel Chick, not unlike when Rodney King was charged with multiple counts of damaging a police baton, so the Eagles were able to go forward again. Fortunately they kick like they cross the road in the early hours of the morning, so the ball didn't get very far.

With Fremantle's new found rebound, Paul Medhurst sent the ball down the ground with such precision that, even though McPharlin was leaning over the fence chatting up a member of the cheersquad, it still landed right on his chest and wedged between his arms. McPharlin dobbed a goal and Fremantle took the lead.

But another bunch of fruity decision from the Granny Smiths saw the Eagles free kick count climb into double figures and allowed Hansen to kick the Eagles second. That's when Fremantle decided to take things into second gear.

Peter Bell got the ball in the back pocket, sent if forward and, while Hasleby and Schofield played about with it to get it down the ground, Bell went the bolt. A minute later he bobbed up in the forward line, took a screamer, kicked a goal and qualified for the Australian 200m relay team for the Commonwealth Games in one of the most inspiration passages of play for the season.

Then it was Medhurst's turn. Realising the Eagles defence consisted of Darren Glass and the shadows from the goal posts, he dropped into the gaping hole between the goal square and the centre circle and found himself on the end of a James Walker kick. His kick was a beauty and the goal umpire (who judging by his sunglasses used to be the lead singer in World Party) didn't have to move. The Wiz got in the action as well, and crumbed a spilled mark to snap Freo's fifth and Brett Peake chased down, tackled, and stole the Brownlow from Chris Judd's neck to set James Walker up for their sixth.

At quarter time it was a 27 point lead with Fremantle looking like a well oiled machine, running hard to back each other up, moving the ball quickly with confidence and playing like a team with something to prove. The Eagles were just well oiled - it looked to be one of Johnson & Johnson's products.

It was more of the same from Fremantle after the quarter time break. Sandilands dominated against the 2005 All Australian ruckman, the mix of strength and pace in the centre was too much for the big named, high priced West Coast midfield to match. The Freo forward line was a thing of beauty even without the crown jewel of Matthew Pavlich sitting in the middle of it and the defenders were enjoying a light run against what the Eagles were trying to pass off as forward line. Schammer, Walker and Mundy were having a great time running the ball out of defence and sweeping the ball across the centre where there were more loose men than a Dockers ad campaign.

The first damage for the quarter came from Luke McPharlin after the new mobile Paul Medhurst gave him the silver service once again with a perfectly weighted kick off the half forward line. Brett Peake was next in the production line with a Voss like handpass from Justin Longmuir setting Peakey's kid up from directly in front.

Another mystery kick from the Granny Smiths gave Stenglein an opportunity to kick one against the flow of play but Paul Medhurst squared the ledger after Aaron Sandilands picked him out from the centre square with his raking right foot. Then, proving that kicking like a Thunderbird puppet is the best way to kick goals, Luke McPharlin put Freo up by 43 points with a goal from forty nine metres out.

Another Granny Smith special went the way of Andrew Embley to keep the Eagles supporters from slitting their wrists in front of the little league kids but Jeff Farmer couldn't help himself and drilled on to take the Dockers into the big break more than double the Eagles score.

Of course, it was just the opening half of the opening practice match of the season. It's hard to draw too many conclusions from that. After all, the Eagles started their pre-season training later than Fremantle, and they had a lot of players out - sure they had two Brownlow medallists playing in a midfield that at this point would have struggled to be able to describe the football but there were plenty of reasons why their pants had been pulled down that didn't relate to the overall downslide of their club into the inevitable de-registration process. Being a proud and professional group though, they were sure to fight back in the second half.

At least that seemed to be the thinking amongst the half a dozen Eagles supporters who hadn't left so they could get home before the Booze Bus's were set up. When the action started up for the second half it seemed Fremantle were the ones playing for pride. If anything, they'd only used the first half as a warm up.

Luke McPharlin opened his second half account after Brett Peake went on a run from the half back line. Six bounces and a qualification to run the second leg of the 200m relay with Peter Bell later, Peake could hardly muster enough energy to kick the ball and it rolled its way off his boot and into Fremantle's forward line. One of the West Coast stooges was stupid enough to pick the ball up in the vicinity of Jeff Farmer and the Wiz drove him into the ground faster than an Eagles player leaving an impound lot. The ball spilled free, Luke McPharlin scooped it up and put it through the goals and over the fence.

Goal number 5 for McPharlin came, in what was becoming predictable fashion. Paul Medhurst picked him out on the lead from the half forward line and McPharlin didn't need to break stride. McPharlin'd kicking was as good as Medhurst's and Fremantle supporters were looking around at each other, wondering if a Freee-oooo chant is appropriate 5minutes into the third quarter of a game in February.

Luckily, Jlo helped avoid any embarrassing situations when he pulled down a screamer in the goal square and kicked goal number 14, giving blokes a license to pash each other. Matthew Carr broke that mood when he took a handpass off Jlo to kick a goal preventing another out break of the Dockback Mountain celebrations that are sure to be a big factor at Freo games this season.

It was starting to get ridiculous. Fremantle were running rings around the other mob and they were missing three fifths of their spine. It was even starting to become hard to believe that Ben Cousins could have actually gotten away from the policeman. Maybe if the cops had kicked a football in his direction they would have nabbed him.

So, as the shadows over Subi Oval turned to twilight, Fremantle decided to do the only humane thing and let the Eagles have a couple of late goals to give them something to stop them from chucking the whole football caper in.

At three quarter time it was back to a 49 point margin and it was into that time of the game where everyone is just hoping no one from their side gets injured (although a few of the Eagles supporters seemed quite keen to see McDougall go down).

The Luke McPharlin Show continued after the break with his sixth goal giving the Coleman Medal engravers a chance to get their work out of the way early. But once it became clear that Fremantle were going to romp in one way or the other, Freo decided to go back down to first gear and cruise through the rest of the quarter - meaning they only outscored the Eagles by 13 points to win by 62 points.

The win means that Fremantle will go around again at Subiaco Oval next week while the Eagles will head down to Mandurah, checking out their future home in Cockburn on the way.