On a cold winter's day, there is no greater feeling than heading outside, grabbing the biggest stick you can find, walking up to a baby seal and clubbing it over the head until it's dead. Sure, some will tell you about the thrill of the hunt or the challenge of matching your wits against another creature but, at the end of the day, you just can't beat smushing a defenceless creature to death with a blunt object. Which brings us to Fremantle v Greater Western Sydney.
The worst team in the league had headed over to Perth with their second best 22. Some of them could shave, a few of them could hire a car, most thought of Ice T as an actor. The crowd came to see blood. Not just blood but also the squishy stuff that comes out of things that get smushed really badly. They came with some trepidation though. The new coach is the sort of bloke who, sitting on 98 before stumps in a game of cricket, would block even then juiciest of deliveries from the most part time of part time spinners and sort the century out the next morning. So there was a bit of concern he'd have some kooky plan about learning structures or experimenting with a new type of super flood.
Nup.
20 seconds in and Pav was slotting through a goal from the goal square. A minute later and Clancee Pearce was drilling one from 40.
Ross Lyon looked from his stats sheet to the scorebaord and saw they had two goals in less than two minutes. 'Crikey!' he said 'Two goals up? I'm going for a sandwich'. And he headed out to run the gauntlet of the Subi Snack van.
The crowd were excited. No more naffing about with defensive zones this week. Just a good old fashioned game of get it - boot it - kick a goal; with all the subtleties of bumper stickers on the backs of brightly coloured utes.
There was a bit of a nervous moment when Pavlich gave Rhys Palmer a chance to break another of Mick Barlow's bones but, with the tribunal looking down their nose and maiming opposition players, Palmer only went as far as bruising Barlow's spine and it was back to business as usual for the Fremantle forwards.
Ballantyne was looking dangerous so a couple of Giants took his head of and conceded an easy goal, getting the scoreboard moving again after a couple of minutes without any action.
And then Pavlich wound up.
Like the Siren's song, the ever present allure of Kepler Bradley saw nearly all the Giants defenders run at him, leaving Pav confused as to why he was on his own inside fifty. Kepler snuck out a snap and 8 Giants suddenly realised what they'd done. The Freo captain ran onto the ball, literally knocking it through for his second goal rather than bother with the whole caper of picking the ball up.
They didn't make the mistake of leaving Pavlivh alone again - but it didn't make any difference. A long ball came in from Mzungu - up went Pav's arms and down came the footy, followed by a pack of Giant's "defenders".
A few charity free kicks saw GWS get a bit of the footy and Luke McPharlin had a laugh with Paul Duffield when he decided to rush a behind and become the Giants' only scorer but the ball was back up Freo's end soon enough and this time Pav bowling balled through the entire Greater Western Sydney defence. He took a grab and kick a goal before they even had time to rethink their life choices that had lead them to this point.
When the quarter time siren sounded it was six goals to none, Pav was on record goal kicking pace and the crowd's blood lust was well on it's way to being satisfied.
It was Mick Jagger who sung those immortal words "Summer's here and the time is right for dancing in the street”. He also sang a much more relevant song about satisfaction and his lack of ability to get any. When the second quarter kicked off, the Freo supporters shared a common bond - and not just because they too liked to wear very colourful over sized clothing during the 90's.
Fremantle's plan of get it - boot it - kick a goal had turned into get it - kick it - miss the bloody goal. Kepler Bradley set the standard with a couple of misses early in the quarter before the idea took off like an exEagle player out the back window after a loud knock on the door. Ryan Crowley defied logic by being the first player to kick one straight and Michael Walters kept the crowd on life support with a bit of magnificence that deserved a bigger stage but for the most part it was Kepler Bradley spraying it like Brendon Grylls trying to explain the Nationals special pre-selection systems to the staff at El Questro.
By the time the quarter had wrapped up they had taken 15 scoring shots and managed two goals for their troubles. All the while keeping Greater Western Sydney goalless, with Luke McPharlin floating about, taking marks and booting the ball back down the ground only for a Freo team mate to disappoint him.
Of course, anyone who's ever been on a baby seal clubbing weekend will be able to tell you that after a while your club gets all mush on it. There's blood everywhere, guts are all over the place and you find that it's difficult to distinguish between fresh baby seals and just left over bits of previously smushed seal.
So he half time break came as good opportunity to wipe down the clubs, sweep away the smushed seals (you can get a good price on them down at the chicken nugget factory) and start clubbing again with a clan pallet.
They came out fresh and ready to start smashing some undeveloped skulls in. Stephen Hill was running amok, selling so many dummies he was forced to register to start collecting GST. His first chance in front of goals came when Mzungu looped a handpass into, to the untrained eye, empty space. The empty space was soon filled by a cloud of smoke, the ball was taken, the smoke weaved between three GWS players and then sent the footy over the goal umpires head before dispersing and revealing a mildly puffed Stephen Hill.
Concerned that Hill may have just beaten him to win the meat tray for goal of the day, Michael Walters sprung back into action. He gathered a randomly bouncing ball with one hand, deep in the pocket, ran around onto his right - remembered that he's actually left footed - went back around onto his left and casually snapped the goal to bring the crowd to their feet.
The Freeeeeoooooo chant rang out and Walters licked his lips in anticipation of fiing up his new 12 burner.
His captain looked on worried. He'd seen the damage a plate of chops could do to a young up and comer. That sweet fatty goodness eventually driving them to the point of madness and then further down - to become coach of South Fremantle. He couldn't let that happen again.
So he called for the ball, knocked it towards the boundary line, shooed his team mates away and then slotted the ball through off half a step from halfway down the umpires' race. Even the Giants' players were applauding (a couple asked for autographs).
Fremantle were 76 point in front. The Giants hadn't kicked a goal. Even the Giants supporter behind the goal, who presumably was one of their player's mums, was starting to glance towards the exit.
Even seal clubbers have mothers and the Fremantle players started to feel sorry for the victims, they were also concerned that if they beat them by too much, the AFL would start handing out more concessions...and that much orange would not suit Nat Fyfe’s complexion. So they looked the other way while the Giant kiddies snuck a couple of soft goals through.
No harm done really, and by three quarter time the Dockers had put on anther 6 goals to the Giants 4.
Freo were 12 goals up and the crowd were quite happy with how things were panning out. Unfortunately there weren't enough of them at the game to get a wave going but they were doing their best to get a bit of atmosphere back into the footy. Kepler Bradley copped the brunt of that atmosphere when he lined up for his 5th crack at the goals and was given a slow hand clap to help him with his rhythm. He finally dobbed the goal and was cheered from the ground where he was given a ten minute spray from Ross Lyon for generating too much feeling from the paying public.
The Giants kicked on a bit but it was only good for one more game as the talent and experience at Fremantle casually picked them apart and drove it home for a 95 point shellacking.