The build up to Derby 32 was more about anticipation than excitement. The Fremantle supporters were anticipating their top 4 side dishing out a belting to the bottom of the ladder Eagles, building Freo’s percentage and using the soft opposition to get themselves back in the winners circle. The Eagles supporters, God bless the little dears, were anticipating an upset to make amends for the previous six matches where they’ve been unable to get past WA’s number one football club.

But while one groups is well renowned as completely delusional with a belief in their club that has never crossed paths with reality and the other group supported Fremantle, Mark Harvey wasn’t taking any chances.

As a keen competitor he knows that you can’t take any opponent lightly. Sure, their forward line needs a lot of work; and their midfield is quite weak; and their defense, well defenses are over rated; and just because rather than run through the banner they sort of snuck up on it and politely squeezed past, that didn’t mean that they weren’t an opponent worthy of respect.

Mark Harvey gets a lot of things wrong.

The first thing he got wrong was that the Eagles’ skills are bad. Not so. Right from the start they were pinpointing passes...straight to Fremantle players.

Paul Hasleby was happy enough to slot it through when Will Schofield spotted him up at full forward but a couple of his team mates felt guilty taking charity from the disadvantaged, so they pulled their kicks.

It took a long time for the Eagles to win get the ball back into the centre of the ground, where Fremantle felt ok about taking it off them again, and from that point on it was all one way traffic.

Roger Hayden started the fun, weaving through hapless Eagles before landing the ball on the captain’s chest. Pav slotted it through from 65 metres out and the Eagles supporters started to check their watches. They weren’t getting away that easily.   

Every time a Docker got the ball, they were taken aback by how much space and time they had, so they started to toy with the Eagles. It was Globetrotter antics as dummies were sold, blind turns were turned and any opportunity to make an Eagle into a goose was taken.

The Purple Baron managed to throw all three together before he spotted up Pavlich in the forward line, who fired out a handpass to a purple, yet somehow cheeky, blur running past and then watched the blur run into an open goal to belt the footy into the third tier of the grand stand - at which point he realised the blur was Hayden Ballantyne.

The Eagles forwards saw the ball for the first time after a rare win out of the middle and they quickly demonstrated why their midfielders look so disinterested in getting the ball to them, getting nowhere near the goals.

Fremantle had seen enough of what their opposition could do with the ball and quickly went about sending the Eagles a message.

Roger Hayden took a screamer over MacKenzie at half forward, handed the ball off to Matthew Pavlich and Pav booted the ball from 103 metres out, straight over the goal umpires head and into the stands.

The message was - we are much, much, much better than you.

When Hayden took another screamer, this time in the pocket, and slotted it through from three rows back behind the Chicken Treat van, they revised the message by adding another ‘much’.

The game was on it’s way to an absolute shellacking. The record books were being dusted off to look at biggest ever derby losses, the supporters were quietly calculating the total value of the various bets they were going to win and John Worsfold was looking through the employment section of the Sunday Times but the Fremantle players were just taking thing one pair of pulled down pants at a time.

Jesse Crichton got his first taste of Derby pain dispensement when barged his way through a pack of Canaries before landing the ball in the hands of Michael Johnson, who quietly brought up Freo’s sixth goal.

Less quiet was the crowd. Loving it would be quite an understatement. You’d struggle to find a happier 40,000 people in one place without it involving some sort of suicide cult. All it would have taken was for a couple of blokes to stand up to get some beers then sit down again when they realised the queue was too long, and a Mexican wave would have started.

Just to tip them over the edge though, Hayden Ballantyne goosified the entire Eagles midfield out of the centre before firing off a handpass as the bodies piled up on top of him. The ball landed in the hands of Justin Bollen-heeaaay-gen  who got his first kick in AFL footy when he he did what none of the 22 seasoned Eagles could manage - booted it through for a goal. 

When the quarter time siren sounded, the Eagles hadn’t managed one solitary goal - not even one of their traditional derby charity goals from the umpires. Fremantle had put through 7 and walked to their team huddle with a 46 point lead.

The Eagles were gone. In an act of sportsmanship, Mark Harvey walked over to Woosha before he spoke to the players, and offered to lend him a couple of Freo’s reserves to try and make a game of it - but Worsfold just mumbled something about winning a flag in 2013 and walked away.

Mark Harvey was quietly relieved. He didn’t have the heart to mention to Woosha that Fremantle were actually severely undermanned and had most of their available players out on the ground.

Once the players had had a breather and some words of inspiration from their coaches (well, words from Mark Harvey. Johnny Worsfold communicates with a series of glares) the demolition continued.

Morabito intercepted an Eagle ‘pass’ with one outstretched armed before getting it in the direction of The Purple Baron, who managed to attract a pile of Eagles on top of him just after he dished out a handpass to Mundy. Mundy jailed the goal before returning to try and get de Boer some air to breath.

If you had any concerns about the speed of the traffic, it was a good time to leave.

Of course, if you had taken that opportunity, you would have missed the Eagles first highlight. The umpire handing Mark Le Cras the ball and asking him to kick a goal.  At last. It was what everyone had been waiting for - unfathomable derby umpiring.

Full of confidence (and a free kick out of the middle) Le Cras managed to do it again. The West Coast supporters who’d stayed were excited. With their first two goals on the board, They Believed they were still a chance. They were so excited int he Channel 7 booth, Basil was passing cushions around.

The Fremantle supporters were less impressed and politely pointed out to the umpires that they disagreed with their ‘interpretation’ of the rules.

It was really just a minor distraction though. Paul Hasleby with a banana; Nic Suban after tackling the very athletic and marketable Nic Naitanui; Matthew Pavlich over his shoulder, from the pocket, with three blokes hanging him, the sun in his eyes and a bad ankle, Michael Johnson defying the quality of decision making that lead to him using white zinc on his lips after a picking up a cocaine conviction; and  Stephen Hill just because he’s better than everyone else.

Two blokes stood up to get some beers, realised the queue was too long and sat down - and a Mexican Wave broke out.

It was a blue and yellow train wreck and Fremantle were happily playing the role of the dangerously dislodged sleeper or disorientated cow. Geoff Miller had called a snap raid on the West Coast coach’s box to see if Paul Briggs was working the white board.

When the half time siren sounded, the Dockers were 58 points in front and leaving the ground to a standing ovation (no one was game to sit down again in case it started another Mexican wave)

As they players left the ground, there were two coaches following behind in vastly different states of mind. One was terrified about what he was going to say when he was standing in front of his players, ready to motivate them for the second quarter. The other was John Worsfold.

For Woosha, it was a case of glaring at his players for ten minutes then blaming all the team’s problems on Peter Sumich and feeding the media a line about young players, injuries and a future so bright they would need to wear oversized shades.

It was a different story for Mark Harvey, though. He had to work out how to convince his players that the game wasn’t over and that they still had to focus for another two quarters - a task made all the more difficult when he walked into the rooms and they tipped the Gatorade eski over his head.

Once he’d dried off, collected up all the vuvuzelas and convinced Roger Hayden to unplug the Karoake machine, he had a few words to them about percentage and about running out the match, then downed a couple of the party sausage rolls Mundy had cooked up and sent them out to finish the job.

Some highly suspicious umpiring marred the start of the quarter. Strijk kicking the opening goal as a result, annoying the kid working the scoreboard who didn’t like all his consonants getting used up so early in proceedings.

Pav had the quick reply when he was given a rare free kick at half back and decided to try his luck with the light breeze at his back, dobbing one from a lazy 189 metres out.

Another highly suspicious umpiring decision saw Adam Selwood’s young brother handed a goal but for every goal the West Coast were able to scratch out, the class and courage of Fremantle was able to crush them back into derby humiliation.

Normally more of an insighter, The Mayor of Mandurah put through a couple of quick goals to take what was left of the sting out of the game, with the Fremantle players even starting to  chip the ball around, counting out the clock.

Van Berlo did his bit to get the crowd going again, soccering the ball out of midair, whilst fending off one Eagle and distracting another with his dangling car keys, straight through for a goal but it was The Purple Baron, who really brought the crowd back into the game, throwing himself at the football, with scant regard for his personal safety, to tap it into the path of Bollen-heeaaay-gen and lick his wounds while Bollen-heeaaay-gen strolled in to kick his second on-debut goal.

When the three quarter time siren sounded, while disappointingly conceding five goals, Fremantle had managed to stretch their lead out to 61 points.

But there were some in the crowd who were concerned that they’d peaked too early. The wooden spoons has been waved, the Freee-ooooo chant was worn out, all the standard insults had been delivered over the fence...on several occasions and most of the Eagles supporters had left the ground or hidden their colours under their chairs. It seemed that the Eagles had done the impossible - they’d made beating them boring.

There are a few things you can do to alleviate boredom though. One of them involves a bloke named Matthew Pavlich. Well, most of them involve Matthew Pavlich but this one in particular was special.

Pav got the ball iat full back. It’s not a place he’s all that accustomed to so once he got the ball he bolted. He had a bounce in the back pocket, looked around and saw that he was still playing the Eagles, so he had another bounce at half back.  A vortex was forming behind him as he continued his sprint down the ground, sending West Coast players tumbling about on the ground.

He had another bounce just before he reached the centre line then unleashed with a huge drop punt. It flew off the boot, picked up some ice from the stratosphere beofre becoming heavy and heading back down to Earth. It landed in the goal square before bouncing through for not just the goal of the year but the greatest goal in the history of ball sports - but Fremantle had made one grave mistake. They’d hired Buddy Franklin’s dad to do the goal umpiring.

A phantom hand had magically touched the ball, despite being 6 metres over the line and turned the greatest goal ever kicked into a pretty good point. If it was anyone else you’d be devastated but Pavlich will probably do it again.

What it did do was get the crowd fired up. They were ready to jump the fence - and the danger was, once they were out there and had sorted out the goal umpire they’d move through the long list of other targets.

Luckily for the goal umpire, Andrew Embley, any available Selwoods, Quinten Lynch, Dean Cox, the fat bloke in the cheer squad and several other players distinguishable only by the gayness of their haircuts; The Purple Baron took everyone’s frustrations out on Beau Waters, flattening him, sending the ball in Freo’s direction then enjoying the spectacle of Hayden Ballantyne kicking his fourth goal.

When he backed that up with more of the same (Ballantyne kicking a goal, sadly not de Boer killing an Eagle) the Freee-ooooooo chant was dusted off again and continued for most of the quarter.

Hasleby kicked another one; Hill, who’d threatened all day to bring the house down, brought the house down; Luke McPharlin brought down a couple of screamers; Crichton doubled his career goal tally and Hayden Ballantyne outmarked six blokes taller than him then bananaed through his sixth - or a fortnight of goals by Mark Le Cras count.

The siren followed, the Freo Heave Ho was belted out, the Rosco was awarded to the wrong bloke, as is tradition, and Freo supporters left the derby happy for the seventh time in a row; with no sign of letting up any time soon.