Fremantle headed to Eddie's Hat Stadium with a bit of a spring in their step. Dean Laidley and his chocmilk stained tracksuit had been given the Shinboner arse and Chris Scott's brother Brad had been given the job of Head Coach/Grounds Keeper at the North Melbourne Football Club. Knowing Chris as they do, they expected his brother to put an end to the ugly tactics of the Laidley years and replace it with a tough and exciting brand of football that would give the Dockers a good measure of their likely standing in the competition.

Fremantle get a lot of things wrong.

The Roos came out with a game plan that was modelled on Laidley's but Chris Scott's brother had taken out some of the more attacking elements. Scared of what the Dockers were going to do to his football club, he pulled a Hocking and threw all 18 blocks behind the play. The Shinboner flood.

Luckily, Mark Harvey had spent the summer preparing for the tactics de rigueur of Victorian clubs and Fremantle were well prepared, if not a bit disappointed. So they slogged it out, used their youthful exuberance to chase down anyone in a stripey jumper and sent their stand in captain in to throw his 211cm and 123kg body about and play the role of semi trailer to the Kangaroos, well, kangaroos.

With a bit of patience and some slick skills, Fremantle eventually found their way through the flood to the danger zone where Hayden Ballantyne and Chris Mayne combined for the opening goal.

With a few Fremantle players still dizzy from watching the two best small forwards in the game work their trade, the Kangaroos made the most of the Freo mistakes to score a couple of goals, against the flow of play, and hit the lead.

As they regained their bearings, Fremantle response was brutal. David Mundy belted the ball out of the ruck to Garrick Ibbotson who grabbed it out of the air, rolled around onto his right foot and dobbed a super goal with a bit of change. Freo went into the first break with an 8 point lead and Mark Harvey was busy writing up an invoice to North Melbourne for the footy lesson he dished out to Brad Scott.

At quarter time there were some concerns about how the game was panning out. Fremantle were winning it. The giant whistle sign was flashed into the sky and justice was soon being administered. If you were wearing purple (or navy blue - it's hard to tell with the new jumpers) you were a backless, neckless, incorrect disposer of the ball. Free kicks were being handed out to the Kangaroos like AFL grant money and Fremantle were forced to go goal for goal with the umpires.

A 'holding the ball' decision in the goal square got Warren the opening goal of the quarter before the Mayor of Mandurah dispatched some brilliance from a boundary throw in. Hale took a mark inside fifty and kicked the goal after the 'legend of the game' policy was used to allow Brent Harvey to do whatever he liked; with Fremantle replying through Antoni Grover.

McIntosh scored when McPharlin was pinged for unnecessary contact to Petrie's aura;  but then the Roos got greedy. Not happy with being kept in the game by the umpires, they wanted to build a lead. Two goals in a row was too much for Freo to cop. So they got down to business and belted three quick goals into the empty stands.

When half time came around, the Dockers had extended their lead to 11 points and were setting their sights on St Kilda in the semi finals. Brad Scott had run out of ideas with the two stock standards efforts against Fremantle - flooding & cheating - already used up. It was a pathetic sight really and the Fremantle coaching panel took pity on the a bloke who was effectively part of the family, quietly letting North Melbourne kick a couple of easy goals to start the half.

It was nice seeing the Roos coach with a smile on his face for a few moments but Mark Harvey has already decided to run the gauntlet for 2010, getting a number two hair cut at a crucial stage of his coaching career, so Fremantle decided they'd better put sentiment aside for the afternoon and lock away a much needed win.

Chris Mayne got Freo back in the lead after being grabbed off the ball, put in the back of a black van and carted off to an undisclosed location by a couple of wary North defenders. Michael Johnson Jeff Farmered one from the pocket after Wright put it out of bounds on the full, putting the Dockers a couple of goals up. Then Ryan Murphy got on the end of a Clancee Pearce handball to break a long personal drought and score Freo's 10th for the day. 

They should have gone into the last break three goals up but Fremantle hadn't realised you could score a goal with just twenty seconds left on the clock and conceded a late one to bring the margin back to 11 points.

Everything looked set for a tightly fought last quarter, a no holds barred wrestle to the siren. Then Chris Mayne swung into action and had the gate creeking shut in the opening five minutes. Fremantle were out to the biggest lead of the day but it had come at a cost. Antoni Grover had buggered his leg and many of their young players were starting to cramp up and wear down.

So Mark Harvey blew the steam whistle and sent the message out for the players to start shutting things down. The Kangaroos were pretty good about it all. They seemed to go along with things, although it was hard to tell the difference between them flooding at full tilt and flooding at half tilt.

Things got a bit scrappy, a bit lazy and players minds started to drift to next week.

Then the rain started to fall and all bets were off. The Fremantle players hadn't seen water falling from the sky since Aaron Sandialnds took them to the Spearwood onion cutting festival - terrible weather that day. It caught them off guard and Brad Scott swooped. He sent his players on a rare plan of attack and, before the runner had explained to the Fremantle players that the water falling on them was called rain, the Roos had kicked two goals.

The game was back on with seven points the difference and 10 minutes left to play. The tackling was fierce, the running was gut busting and the pressure was intense. The sort of football that sub-editors like to compare to young Australians getting massacred by the Turkish army.

The momentum was all with the Kangaroos and, since the umpires who'd been so pedantic for the first three quarters had decided to put their whistles away, it was hard work chasing down a team in control of the footy.

A few nervous mistakes proved costly for Fremantle as the cool young heads started to decompose themselves. A perfect kick from Ben Warren landed in Petrie's hands and the Rooks crept within a point after he dobbed the goal.

There were three minutes left and Fremantle were under siege. There was no Pavlich to call on to save the day and they were struggling to get the ball inside fifty. Another point to the Roos leveled the scores and the Fremantle supporters back home started working very hard to convince themselves it was just a pre-season scratch match.

'Everywhere' Warren took a grab inside fifty and it suddenly became a much easier argument to make. But he missed.

Fremantle were a point down with the ball in their hands and a minute left on the clock. All they needed to do was boot the footy up the centre and scrambled a couple of points. Duffield went for the big roost but his legs had different ideas and it landed between Luke McPharlin and a circle of North Melbourne players.

McPharlin fought of three of them to push the ball forward but it went flying straight back over his head. Warren was waiting, Petrie was poised but McKintosh mucked it up, belting the ball into the post.

Twenty seconds left on the clock and Fremantle needed a goal. They knew it could be done.

Tarrant went long and straight to the giant standing at centre half forward. There was nothing the North Melbourne players could do as Sandilands swatting the ball out of air and into the path of Stephen Hill in the centre. Hill picked it up, blind turned out of danger then dished of a handpass to Chris Mayne. The ball was in the danger zone.

Two points down, 12 seconds on the clock. Mayne fired off a handpass to Hayden Ballantyne, Ballantyne drew a crowd then swept a handpass of his own down to Ryan Murphy who'd manged to get himself more room than Johnny Worsfold after a loss. Murphy turned around, headed to the goals then booted the footy into the back of the fence.

Fremantle were home.