Sport in summer should be watched on grass. Sitting about in massive piles of concrete and steel baked in the Perth heat with little plastic chairs squashed together like the Sandilands family on public transport is up there with drinking soup, wearing black jeans and listening to Missy Higgins as things you steer clear of when the weather lifts it's game (unless you're some sort of bitter-sweet folk music loving bogan with a medical condition which prevents you from eating solids). What you want in late February is a nice paddock of grass to sit in, kick back and watch other people running about, getting hot and doing clever things with some sort of ball.

With that in mind, there were a lot of people squashed into their sticky plastic chairs who were extremely jealous of the Melbourne players. After a long pre-season they seemed to think that they'd headed over to Perth to kick back on the lush green grass of Subiaco Oval and watch the Dockers put on a football display for the kiddies. Jared Rivers had his tartan blanket laid out, Cale Morton was set up in the goal square with a folder chair and a portable television and Liam Jurrah backed up the panel van and was throwing a few snaggers on his portable Weber.

Expecting some sort of contest, the Dockers were a bit taken back by the outbreak of lazing about and spent the first few minutes sharing the ball amongst the new blokes, giving the fans a chance to work out who was who. Once everyone had worked out that number 6 was not the ghost of Dean Solomon but actually Greg Broughton with a creepy Glenn Close thing going on, the older blokes at Freo players got down to putting on a bit of a show.

David Mundy and Roger Hayden went toe to toe to see who could cause the most damage to the opposition, with points awarded for laconicness; Luke McPharlin and Michael Johnson went hang for hang as they competed for the Mark of the Pre-season competition (the winner gets some sort of meat tray) and Aaron Sandilands was running about interviewing for a position on a half forward flank should he lose out to Moribito and Clarke in the ruck later in the year.

But the real show was going on up forward. Des Headland got the 2010 scoreboard moving, making a Melbourne ranga look even more foolish, tapping the ball down in front of himself and soccering through a beauty.

That was like a ceremonial glove slapped across the Mayor of Mandurah's face and Ballantyne responded, crumbing a ball in the goal square like he was operating in a different gravitational field to the rest of the pack, pausing to make the ranga look stupid, then belting the footy into the back of the fence.

Michael Johnson got in on the goal scoring action after Fremantle got a rare free kick, then Pavlich got his eye in with a screamer in the goal square and a kick that avoided hitting any posts.

As the Dockers headed into their quarter time huddle, 26 points up, some questions started to be raised over just how seriously they were taking the game. The eskies were brought out and players were crowding around, sticking their arms in looking for the last beer. Of course, with the arms coming back out empty, the other question raised was - who drank all the beer?

As it turns out, it was some kind of new fanlged cooling technique - which was good news because it meant that the beer was still safe in Pav's private fridge.

While sticking bits of yourself in an eski might seem clever on the surface, anyone who's ever taken the wrapper off their twin pole before trying to break it in half will be able to tell you that your hands get numb, slippery and your twin pole gets covered in sand.

So the Dockers returned with a case of the fumbles. Ballantyne 's short arms meant he wasn't too badly effected and he kicked the opening goal but the Fremantle defenders let their copy book be blotted, conceding a couple of 9 pointers (although technically that was the midfield blotting the defenders copy book).

As the players' limbs started to de-numb, the midfielders started to get their touch back. Mundy continued to star, DeBoer and Broughton hurt some blokes and former VFL pin up boy Michael Barlow put his hand up for Dean Solomon's recently vacated spot on the senior list.

A goal from Brad Miller got the Demon's within 16 points but Clancee Pearce unloaded on the fifty, on the siren and sent the ball sailing over the back of the grand stand for a 9 pointer, the football equivalent of reaching into a man's heart and showing it to him just before he dies.

Fremantle kept the ice shenanigans to a minimum at the long break unfortunately the umpires took a different view and were seen loitering around the Eagles' change rooms. When they came out they were strangely on edge. The whistles were going like mad as they reached new heights of pedanticasity.

Eventually they started to crash and the players were able to get back to playing football so Freo decided to stretch things out a bit. Their midfield crushed the Demon's and forced them into the humiliation of flooding during a scratch match. But with the Dockers new look forward line, the flood was more of a nasty leak than anything of a biblical nature.

Pav slotted one through from his bogey spot in Ambo corner; Johnson goosified a couple of blokes unlucky enough to be drafted by Dean Bailey, to kick his third; Chris Mayne got in on the action with a pearler on the run and Aaron Sandilands took a couple of strong grabs in the goal square for 7 points.

When the three quarter time siren sounded, you got the impression Melbourne were done for the year. Broken in February with the next winter Olympics another 4 years away. The Melbourne supporter was devestated.

The last quarter saw both teams cruising about trying not to get injured and taking bets on who could cramp up the most. Freo kicked a few more goals for the road, won by 8 goals and no one is expected to have their knee cut open to insert high tech lackey this week. So a good night all round.