The human ear is made up of three bones which vibrate and allow us to hear things. By the time Peter Bell had finished his “luckiest man on the face of the Earth" speech, a hundred thousand of those tiny bones were broken thanks to the sound of thousands of bells being rung in tribute to the greatest of Fremantle's mistakes and recruiting master strokes.

It probably wasn't a good idea for so many of the players to be listening either, because the damage to their ears seemed to bugger up their balance, as blokes fell over, kicks went astray and Nick Riewoldt managed to keep himself upright.

Being so exposed to high pitched whining noises, St Kilda were the first to recover from the ear injuries and Adam Schneider jagged the opening goal to give St Kilda an early lead but Fremantle soon steadied themselves and wrestled control of the game with Jeff Farmer running amok in the midfield and Antoni Grover keen to put someone in the hospital before the day was out.

Adam Campbell made the breakthrough for Fremantle when Chris Mayne gave up trying to kick goals and centred to the top of the fifty. Plugger Campbell booted the cover off the footy and celebrated with the sort of enthusiasm usually reserved for a Longmuir brother.

He backed up again, riding Lenny Hayes (tradition ally that's Nick Riewoldt's job) then booting his second and making sure he got his monies worth celebration wise, once again.

Vhitey Riewoldt overcame his inability to kick after Fremantle became too Campbell conscious in the forward line and coughed up the ball, putting the Saints back in front. It was short lived though, with Vhitey’s former arch nemisis, Luke McPharlin pegging it back in style, blind turning through 6 St Kilda flooders then rolling back on to his raking right foot and splitting the middle of the big sticks.

With Fremantle looking the goods, the crowd were starting to warm up, and  it was just the unseasonal heat. They were pretty fired up when a string of outrageous umpiring decisions gave Schneider another goal, particularly outrageous because no one had even realised the umpires were out there. The bludgers hadn't bothered to pay Freo a free kick all quarter.

Paul Duffield sent the Dockers into the first quarter with a handy lead after David Mundy picked him out deep inside fifty and the siren sent the crowd out for the icypoles formerly known as Frosty Fruits.

With St Kilda sponsored by Streets, there was no chance of them getting a decent icypole to cool themselves down to something resembling their miserable Melbourne winter days. When the two sides returned to the ground, Fremantle continued their ring running around tactics while St Kilda continued their tactics of playing ram the opposition ruckman.

Plugger Campbell was back in the thick of things with a spry Jeff Farmer smacking the ball into his chest while St Kilda players played Pile Up and the umpires checking the big screen for updates on the Olympic Rhythmic Gymnastics.

As the ball was sent straight back into the Freo forward line, supporters were starting to wonder if Campbell was on target for double figures but Matthew Pavlich wasn't going to let the record go without a fight. Despite being molested by St Kilda players so badly and so often that Warner Brothers were talking to his manager about a Movie of the Week, Pavlich managed to break free of his shackles and run onto a Byron Schammer bullet. Pav forgot about Sydney, wandered back, dobbed the goal and put Fremantle three goals up.

The umpires went missing in action once again and St Kilda scragged their way to another goal, this time through Raphael Clarke, but it was all Fremantle as the Dockers headed for their 4th win in 5 games.

As if trying to prove a point, Pavlich jailed another one from the same spot he'd choked in last week, and the Saints were looking very shaky despite being given free rein to flaunt the most basic of rules.

Unfortunately, having a game in the bag early hasn't been a great place for the Dockers to be this year and, almost in retaliation to St Kilda's constant scragging, when a Fremantle player wasn't being held by the jumper to a Saint, they buggered off as far away from them as they could.

The space they were giving St Kilda was understandable given the suspicious orientation of some of their players but it wasn't the sort of defence the coach was talking about when he’d addressed his team at quarter time.  Robert Harvey is hard enough to keep tabs on at the best of times but in these conditions he was having second thoughts about retirement. He put through a goal after what experts refer to as 'marking unaided' and Stephen Milne snapped an unaided goal from the pocket as half time approached,  to send the Saints into the big break just 4 points down.

Despite the lack of manning up from the opposition, St Kilda were still feeling the effects of the Perth sunshine and headed to their changerooms to try and get some much needed relief. They had ice baths, ice vests, cooler rooms, and pillows that a trainer had just turned over so they could lie on the cool side. They had every device known to man to fight the heat and return fresh.

Fremantle took a different tact. Mark Harvey has always been known as a man of science and while St Kilda set out to fight the heat, he'd recently been doing some studies in Geneva on the best methods to deal with differing climates. Leading experts now believe that it's better to acclimatise than to battle against conditions so, despite the research still being in its early stages, he decided to give it a go.

When the Freo players arrived in the rooms, he had a barbie going, an eski full of beer and Chris Scott was padding up in one corner while Dean Wallis marked out his run up to fire down a few of his leg breaks.

A few snaggers latter, it was 3 for 87 before the 3 minute siren interrupted the cricket and reminded the players to swap the thongs for the footy boots and get back to business.

Perhaps it was the second beer Steve Malaxos passed around to everyone, maybe it was having a gut  full of Harves’ home made sausages or possibly just the coleslaw sourced by the  Subiaco catering staff but when Fremantle returned to the ground the verdict was in on the new acclimatisation technique – it was a load of bollocks.

The Saints smashed Fremantle right from the first ball up. Hardly able to get a hand on the ball or within arms length of an opponent, they were largely forced to watch on as goal after goal went sailing through for St Kilda. Nick Riewoldt was not just getting kicks, he was getting them close enough to goals that he couldn't put it out of bounds on the full. Stephen Milne was wandering around like a footballer and the local crowd were starting to turn.

David Mundy got a free kick when the umpire felt guilty for a day of crucification (although he even buggered that up) but it seemed to be Fremantle's only avenue to goals and it hasn't been a traditionally prolific way for the Dockers to score.

When the three quarter time siren sounded to put the Dockers out of their misery, St Kilda had turned a narrow deficit into a 5 goal lead.

Still, with the heat sure to be taking its toll on the Saints and the Dockers unable to play much worse, the locals were optimistic about their last quarter chances.

The locals were wrong.

Five minutes into the final term there were calls for a group of small Chinese women to surround the Fremantle players with white placards so the public wouldn't be subjected to the sight that was unfolding. St Kilda kept kicking goals without the worry of opponents and the margin kept growing.

Pavlich kicked a cruel goal in the last quarter to show he can do it, but this time there was little point to it. St Kilda had wrapped the game up and Fremantle's season was just two more weeks from ending.