There had been a lot of friction at Fremantle in the preceding few weeks, well months, well years. A new coach, a controversial style, a president missing...presumed skiiing, and some selections decisions that would even embarrass the ACB but a good win at the MCG and a week off to miss footy had everyone in good spirits. All was forgiven, the slate was wiped clean - Fremantle were ready to start their late run to the flag. 

They couldn't had started said run better. Crowley out of the middle and into the hands of Matthew Pavlich standing in the spot he should be tethered to, centre half forward (obviously they'd have to have some sort of system where they were able to move the tether between quarters [not to say that Pav couldn't kick a goal from centre half back if he wanted to]). The crowd went mad, Pavlich kicked the goal, they went slightly madder. The pigeon on the half back flank shed a tear. This was it. It was all coming together. Fremantle were back to being awesome again. 

And then Essendon kicked the next three goals.

The pigeon felt a bit silly and went back to looking for whatever the hell it is pigeons are always looking for. The Fremantle supporters weren't sure where to look. It was going to be a long, cold night if this sort of stuff kept up. 

But it didn't. Fremantle hit their stride once more, and this time they took more than one of those strides. 

It started with the simplest of things...Alex Silvagni decided someone needed to die. He threw his weight at Kyle Reimers just to watch him die and it started a chain reaction of unnecessary roughness. 

Greg Broughton flung himself at a couple of other Bombers, leaving the ambo's to clean up his mess while he moved the ball forward. Pav had seen the carnage a developed a bit of blood lust himself, he smashed the pack and creating a chaos effect that finished with Chris Mayne dobbing goal and James Hird blacking out in the coach's box after suffering flashbacks of the time he had his face knocked off. 

Scos had fired everyone up and at the next bounce and Broughton was straight back into the pain dispensing plan. Unfortunately Essendon weren't shy about giving some of the rough treatment back (the filthy bastards)  but the silky skills and unwavering courage of the Fremantle players was too much even for the thuggish tactics of the Bombers. 

The Bombers players were starting to lose their composure and a huge boot from Crozier saw Zac Clarke pull down a screamer in the disarray of it all. A beautiful kick for goal put Freo within a point.  Then they went back to the middle and did it all again, this time with Mick Barlow doing the finishing work. 

The crowd were excited. Fast, tough, fun footy was back on the menu after some less than thrilling games earlier in the season and they liked it. 

The Bombers fought back though  - well, they were encouraged to fight back by some highly controversial umpiring - but Fremantle were on a roll. They'd regained their passion for kicking goals and couldn't get enough of it. 

Crozier kept pumping the ball long and the forwards kept fighting over it. Chris Mayne risked his high scoring percentage by snapping one on the run, with delightful results, and Jon Griffin belted one home from somewhere in front of the QBE building.  Were it not for some more highly controversial umpiring, Fremantle would have gone into the quarter time break with a two goal lead. As it was, they were given a well deserved ovation for being up by just the one.

The Freo players were feeling pretty good about themselves. Lately their quarter time breaks have been met with polite silence and the odd tumbleweed making it's way across their forward line. Kicking goals, being cheered, hurting people physically - that's what footy was all about.  But Ross Lyon wasn't happy with any of that and gave them a stern dressing down. 

When the umpires called for the players to get back out on the ground, Ross was still talking. Too may goals, too many blokes standing about in the forward line and far, far too much noise was being generated in the crowd. He wanted them to wrestle him back control.

A few minutes later Fremantle were two goals down. They'd descended into some sort of quasi-flood-zoney thing. Back was forward, forward was back, up was left. No one knew what it was, how it went or why they were doing it. They just knew it  didn't work. The Bombers were carving Fremantle up with their pace and superior boot technology (two fluoro colours on one boot cannot be legal) not to mention the James Hird mojo working on the footy that refused to behave fairly in front of the Essendon goals. 

But as time went by, more and more of the Fremantle players forgot their instructions and starting playing footy again. Zac Clarke kicked another goal when Essendon made the mistake of letting him get loose 80 metres from goals - it turns out he can just kick goals willy nilly off one step. 

Chris Mayne fought on with one as well but it was Essendon's quarter and Fremantle went into the half time break 14 points down, to a very quiet crowd and  couple of tumbleweeds blowing through their forward line. 

Pav wasn't impressed. He was enjoying being majestic at centre half forward and if this sort of thing kept up he was going to end up back in the midfield trying to protect percentage again. So he did the only sensible thing and handed out ear plugs as the players went down to the rooms. 

They returned a different side.  No more buggering about with the ball in the backline or pushing numbers to areas were numbers weren't really required. They were back to their opening quarter magic that had people, other than the cheersquad crazies, going crazy. 

Matthew Pavlich and Greg Broughton combined for a couple of goals to get things rolling (Pav still owes Broughton about 130 lace out passes before they're even). Matt deBoer chipped in for a beauty before Pav took one for himself and Chris Mayne jailed another one to continue his ridiculous record of not missing.

It was a football feast. Barlow and Lower were dancing about in the centre square, making a mockery of any traditional concept of speed or technique; Pavlich was loving the space and freedom of centre half forward, like a dog after a long ride in the back of car; Garrick Ibbotson was mopping up anything that escaped into the backline and Zac Clarke was testing out the theory that Dustin Fletcher's tears can provide you with immortality. 

Then there was Matt deBoer. He was magnificent. From crashing packs to pin pointing passes to team mates, bringing down screamers and kicking goals. The LNP in Queensland had to rush through a bill banning deBoer from entering the state, to make sure the word banana stayed as part of their reputation as banana benders. 

Eventually Essendon got a goal against the flow of play but Pav quickly fired back to push Freo out to a 3 goal lead. Unfortunately a series of even more, if you can believe it, controversial umpiring decisions gave the Bombers two late goals to put the three quarter time margin at 5 points. 

Ross was ropeable. The message jut didn't seem to be getting through. He sat them down and explained it - if Fremantle hadn't kicked all those goals then the siren would have gone much sooner, and Essendon woudn't have had time to kick those late goals. It was all very straight forward. 

So they corrected. They went out and kicked no goals in the last quarter - but that was even worse. Essendon kicked 4 goals and, by not kicking goals, Fremantle had let the quarter end much earlier, which hadn't given themselves enough time to kick any late goals. It was basic football theory. 

They lost by a confusing 24 points.