It had been a big week in science. Scientists had discovered a way to take some cells from the heart of a rat and turn them into an artificial jellyfish.  It was a great testament to the ability of man to spend vast resources, huge amount of time and a great deal of dedication to achieve something completely pointless and probably a little bit wrong. Which brings us to Port Adelaide. 

The tarpaulins were out in force and a couple of supporters had rocked up too, as Fremantle arrived for the last week of their bye month where they set themselves the task of thumping, not the weakest of their bye month teams but certainly the most pointless of all clubs, The Port Adelaide Power. 

Adelaide had become somewhat of a home away from home for Fremantle in recent years, except with more mullets and less hard aar sounds. So a game there against one of the new franchise blow in teams was really just a question of maximising percentage. 

So it was no surprise when Fremantle starting kicking goals with very little effort. If any. 

Back from getting his bionic leg replaced, Chris Mayne was straight back into his eerily robotic rhythm, kicking his 20th odd set shot for the season after a beautiful pass from Clancee Pearce landed on his chest. 

Pav followed it up, with a bit more excitement, when Nat Fyfe A-ah booted the ball 110 metres from the centre of the ground to land it in Pav's arms - who was leaning on the goalpost talking to one of his cousins behind the fence. Pav sent the ball flying, well past the tarps, and Fremantle had two goals on the board. 

A tumbleweed blew through the Port Adelaide forward line as Chris Mayne kicked Freo's third straight goal. The Dockers had complete control of the centre square,  with Nat Fyfe's aura alone making them a three or four goal better side.  As far as his work with the ball went, though, that was making Fremantle a dozen goal better side. 

With a long queue of blokes lining up to kick a goal, with varying levels of failure Fyfe scooped at the ball at the back of the pack and casually wandered over to the pocket to snap his first goal with his new shoulder (the old shoulder is currently on display at  the Fremantle Arts Centre).

Fremantle were unstoppable. They couldn't be beaten in the middle, the ball couldn't get past them in defense, with Luke McPharlin floating about the place marking anything that was kicked forward of the Fremantle half forward line; and the Pavlich/Mayne/Ballantyne combination was back in full swing...well two out of three were. 

Their complete dominance of Port came to a climax when Chris Mayne smashed his way through a pack of Port Adelaide players to spill the ball free. Roberton jumped on it and fire out a handpass to deBoer. deBoer went to Mundy, Mundy over to Pearce and Pearce unloaded with a magnificent kick over the goal umpire's head. It was inspirational stuff as even the local Fremantle supporters were able to forget, for just a few moments, that they were living in Adelaide. 

Sadly, they were brought back down to Earth a few minutes later when the umpires set Ebert up for an easy goal, denying the Fremantle defenders a clean sheet going into quarter time. It's a team game though and the Fremantle team were kicking the arses of the Port Adelaide team, to the tune of 24 points. 

It was an exciting time to be a Fremantle supporter. The big names were hitting form, the team was gelling again after so much time in the wilderness, there was a spot in the top 8 up for grabs and Fremantle had smashed open the door, grabbed that spot and were bolting down the street with it....along with any sense that Port Adelaide were something that should be described as a football club. 

So, after pretending to listen to Ross Lyon rattling off motivational slogans, the players headed back to kick goals until such time as the UN stepped in to declare it a war crime. 

Unfortunately Port Adelaide had different plans. Not content with having swapped half their supporters for giant tarpaulins laced with double entendres, they set themselves the job of clearing out all the people so they could fill the entire joint with advertising. They closed up all the space, they chipped the ball up and down the ground and generally made a mess of the game. 

It was a quaint idea from Matthew Primus but Ross Lyon has been showing Fremantle how to play messy football all season. They were experts at it. 

They ducked and weaved through the trouble, they crashed their way through the packs and, when they couldn’t go through or around, the went for a fly to bring down speccie after speccie. 

The problem was that their expertise at kicking for goals was somewhat less impressive.  Brilliantly set up goals were turned into rival contenders for Nic Naitanui's point of the year as Freo forwards choked like an English cycling team. 

Had there been anyone sitting behind the goals, you'd just assume that someone was using a laser pointer for a purpose other than the manufacturer’s intention (ie. bringing down light aircraft and pointing out where people's breasts are), blinding the Fremantle forwards. 

It wasn't until David Mundy slipped on the magic boots and decided to break team rules and not centre the footy, slotting through a miracle goal from somewhere around the back of the Chicken Salt factory that Fremantle got back into the majors column on the scoreboard. 

As awesome a goal as it was, the Freo supporters couldn't help but be a bit disappointed when the half time siren sounded and that was the only goal kicked for the quarter (except the strange bloke who was excited at how well Fremantle's structures had held up). Still, they'd been kicking into a stiff breeze in tricky Adelaide conditions...they were sure to turn things on again in the third quarter. 

So, after spending the half time break scraping the peas out of their pies and being shuffled a few blocks over so the ground staff could install another tarp, the Fremantle supporters settled in for a big second half of goal kicking and awesomeness. 

Fremantle had different ideas though. They'd all been given a stern talking too for their over exuberance in front of goals, the excitement of unfettered action in the first quarter had been taken too far, so the coach wound them back in. 

It was a much more clinical, sensible side that returned to the ground after half time. The first plan was to give the Port Adelaide players a sense of hope, in an attempt to stop them from trying to shut the game down. Fremantle conceded an early goal and let the Port players see a bit more of the footy. 

They drip fed them on cheap possessions, knowing that they'd never get the ball past the thin purple line to cause any damage. 

The second part of the plan was to make sure Fremantle didn't spook Port Adelaide with a flurry of goals that would scare them back into defensive flooding. So they spaced the goals out, with Mzungu, Pavlich and Walters kicking very low key goals from free kicks and uncontested marks to make it look like it was almost accidental. 

So when the three quarter time siren sounded, Fremantle had crept another couple of goals further in front but had managed to make the Port Adelaide players feel as if they were still in the game. Not being strong mathematicians, the 44 point margin was lost on them. 

Fremantle were now faced with an important decision. Did they make their move and run all over Port Adelaide, picking up enough percentage to jump over the Kangaroos and claim 8th spot or did they stay under the radar, take the the 4 points and wait to pounce on the competition with a well timed run later in the season learning an important lesson in humility in the process?

They went for the lesson in humility. 

A couple of goals went Freo's way but for the most they just went through the motions in the last quarter. Port Adelaide ran their little hearts out, kicking as many as 4 goals to bring their total for the day to a massive 6.

Fremantle weren't concerned though. They took the win and set their sights on picking up their percentage in the derby. 

Derby percentage tastes much sweeter.