Fremantle hopped on the plane to Adelaide surprisingly confident for a team with just 3 wins on the board from three quarters of a season trying (and one flying on a Qantas plane). Sure, they'd won a week earlier by 8 goals but that was over the side they were sharing the bottom of the ladder with. Not that anyone was complaining though, a bit of confidence has been sorely missed by the Dockers this year. Port were coming off a season closing win over their cross town rivals and looked ripe for the picking but the confidence seemed to be tipping over into arrogance when Freo handed in their team sheet – Matthew Pavlich had been dropped.

After playing through crippling shoulder pain, rooted knees, broken bones and Damian Drum the only explanation for Pav's absence could be that they wanted him rested for the following week's derby but it seemed a bit of a luxury.  Suspicious even. If they'd replaced him with Daniel Gilmore the AFL would have run them in for draft tampering. It certainly had the Port Adelaide supporter who had shown up to watch confused.

But what appeared before the game to be alarm bells ringing for the remainder of Fremantle's season, it quickly became apparent that it was a stroke of coaching genius. Without having to meet the lofty expectations of Captain Perfect, the Fremantle players cut loose on their opposition. Sure, it helped that their opposition pretty much consisted of David Rodan but never the less, Fremantle run amok.

Taking control of the centre, the Freo midfielder pinged the ball forward to the pack of Freo forwards all vying to be crowned The New Pav. But it was a spritely Mark Johnson who had Freo supporters nodding “oh, that's what he's for” when he swooped on the crumbs of 6 Dockers all going for a mark at once and snapped the opening goal of the match.

Under some pressure, Port rushed a behind but Josh Carr had cleverly hidden himself behind Dean Brogan's chin, only to spring out and steal the kick back into play. He dobbed Freo's second but his greatest achievement was managing to restrain himself from pointing out just how much he thought his former team mates sucked.

It was all Fremantle as they waltzed the ball from the middle against a side who pride themselves on their clearance abilities, mopped up against a forward line where everyone is a Power forward and had a forward line of their own that was working so smoothly, Matthew Pavlich was already starting to worry about getting his spot back.

Luke McPharlin put through Freo's third as he continued to make it harder to put him back in defence; Antoni Grover meandered forward himself to slot through his second goal for the year;  McPharlin pulled down a screamer and made it two; then Aaron Sandilands and Jeff Farmer combined to produce Fremantle's sixth in a row. It was a shellacking.

The quarter time siren sounded to put Port Adelaide 30 points behind, without a goal and with very little indication they were going to kick one. The Port crowd, which had tripled in size, to 3 people, were trying to work out if it would be conspicuous if they left early.

They decided to stay but did duck off to the toilets during the break and were in for a bit of a shock when they returned a few minutes late.

After seeing Dean Brogan's face up close, the umpire had accidentally blown his whistle when he tried to swallow the vomit. Brogan was all smiles (either that or his face was catching the wind like spinnaker) after he kicked the goal and put the Power into the race.  Then Justin Westhoff tripped over his bootlaces a couple of times, dropped the ball on the corner of his boot and watched as he jagged it through for another two goals.

The Port supporters arrived back shocked – mainly because there were only three people at the ground and yet they'd still had to queue at the dunnies but also because there team had managed to put some sort of a score on the board.

There were some worrying signs about for Fremantle. Not least of all the fact that they were in front, never a good position for Fremantle this year, but they'd also started getting the shakes in front of goals and were starting to look less polished as a few of Rodan's team mates started to join in the contest.

Warren Tredrea was one of those team mates and he managed to put the Power within a couple of goals of Freo.

The panic button was being pushed in the Fremantle coach's box. Unfortunately that button is hooked up to a device that tells Pavlich to go into the centre. With that option unavailable, regular blokes were just going to have to put in a bit.

A tough ask in some cases but Mark Johnson does little more than put in. When a pack of Port players gathered around the footy at half forward, he decided he wanted a piece of it. He bashed his way in, bashed the footy from their hands, bashed his way out again and then bashed the footy into the back of the fence for a much, much needed goal.

Tredrea got one back when he pushed Steven Dodd in the back to mark in front of goals and used the ever growing wind to sneak through the goal but Ryan Murphy refound his kicking boots, drilling one at the other end against the breeze, on a tight angle and with Dean Brogan's face to contend with on the mark.

It gave Fremantle a handy buffer after weathering the Port Adelaide storm that had hit them in the opening minutes of the quarter but they looked more settled as the half time siren approached. It should have ended there but Westhoff combined with Tredrea to produce an even arsier goal than either would have been able to jag on their own.

When the siren did sound, Fremantle's 30 point lead had been whittled down to just 13.

There were some dark clouds on the horizon and Mark Harvey was keen to make sure that wasn't going to become a metaphor for the game. He left no swear unworded as he delivered his half time address to the players. He wanted them frothing at the mouth by the time they ran back onto the ground, ready to meet Port Adelaide with the sort of aggression that Adelaide's poor cousins had dished out to them in the past -  and if that didn't work, he had a curly blonde wig ready for Pavlich to pull on and an XXL guernsey with the number 8 on the back of it.

It didn't take long for Pav to get the signal to 'wig up' when the second half got underway. Westhoff had cheated his way to another goal in the opening 18 seconds,  A couple of minutes later he kicked another one and Port were within a kick.

Feeling the breath of Matthew Pavlich incognito on his back, Shaun McManus made the most of Mark Johnson's bowling ball antics, jumped over the bodies in front of him and soccered through another much, much needed goal for the Dockers.

It didn't take long for his hard work to become undone when he fell over and the umpires deemed it worth a down the ground free kick, for reasons only known to the umpire (and possibly his bank manager) to get the Power back within a kick – a kick taken by Dom Cassisi to put Port Adelaide into the lead.

The crowd went mad. The Mexican wave appeared to go up around the ground or it could have just been a coincidence as all three supporters stood up to get a beer. The Dockers supporters back home weren't quite as pleased with events. Rick Hart was licking his lips as the sound of boots going through Plasmas rang out around Fremantle, dogs were hiding in the corner of  rooms and, down at Fremantle Oval, they'd started work on a Steve Rosich effigy.

But they were wrong to doubt. As quickly as they'd lost it, Fremantle regained their competence  and then pushed on to dominate once again.

Chris Tarrant pulled down a screamer on the fifty then slotted through the goal, with Pav like precision; Brett Peake took the ball out of the centre, said 'let's see you do this dad' and unloaded from 107 metres out, clearing the goal umpires head, the grandstand and landing in a Church somewhere three streets away; then Chris Mayne overcame his yips and compulsion to pass the ball to a team mate to kick his fist of the day and push the Dockers back out to a more comfortable lead.

Pearce spoiled Freo's run with one of the luckiest goals you are ever likely to see but David Mundy took the ball back up Freo's end and copied Pearce with one of the most skilful kicks at goal you are ever likely to see.

It was all Fremantle. They were controlling the footy all over the ground, with hard running, great team work and skills unseen for most of the season.

With the wind still building though, Fremantle knew they couldn't waste a moment they had it at their backs. Another beautiful long kick from Brett Peake was what the side were after, as Josh Head put in his resume for the role of The New Pav, leaping at the ball, shrugging off a couple of opponents in midair before landing, gossifying them and booting a team lifting goal.

And lifted they were. As the ball returned to Freo's forward line, Chris Tarrant threw himself at the footy, handpassed over his head to the voice of Brett Peake who had arrived moments before the sound of his voice. Peake took the ball, dummied around a couple of Port players, fired out a handpass to Garrick Ibbotson who put through the goal and took Fremantle into the last change 26 points in front.

It was a bit of a daunting prospect for Mark Harvey. His side had a decent lead, there was one quarter left to play and Port Adelaide were looking to benefit from an Elvira Street style wind at their back.  The big question in his mind was – have we learnt anything from the other dozen times we've been in this position this year.

When the footy got going again the answer looked good. Freo booted the ball long out of the centre and looked to have Port's number as they ran rings around them once again. Unfortunately they didn't kick rings around them and Cassisi drew Port closer with the first goal of the quarter.

Nervous but still with three goals and change in the bank, Fremantle needed to steady. Port were making good use of the wind though and the Fremantle defenders needed all their courage to hold back surge after surge of teal gayity coming towards them. 

Eventually, they were able to break free though and a Michael Johnson special, low even for his kicks, was scooped up by Ryan Crowley and put through for a goal, bringing a collective sigh of relief back in Fremantle that nearly brought down a helicopter.

They were still a long way from home though and Peter Burgoyne managed to land the ball twenty metres out from goals and watch it bounce through as Fremantle players were held back in highly suspicious circumstance.

Once again Crowley stood up, swooping on yet another ball and snapping his second in as many minutes to make the increasingly jubilant Port players a lot less gay – as hard as that may sound.

But every time Fremantle put Port Adelaide down, they'd bounce back up and kick another goal. This time it was Motlop, followed by Rhys Palmer, followed by Motlop again. Time was running out for the home side though, they still needed three goals and they were starting to look a lot slower as the Dockers powered home.  Fresh and full of life, there was little sign of the side that just weeks ago broke  the AFL choking record.

Mark Johnson bullied his way through for another goal, to push the margin back out to 24 and the Port supporters had gotten together to organise a lift for the car trip home.  When Antoni Grover clamped his arms around Warren Tredrea, ripped him off the ball and took one of his arms off in the process, to send the Port skipper from the ground, they piled into the teal Kingswood and headed off home.

Scott Thornton wrapped things up with a beauty from outside fifty and Mark Harvey became poised to be the second ever coach of Fremantle to win three games in a row.