It's very rarely a straight forward event when Fremantle play St Kilda. If the Saints aren't cheating, they're besmirching the good name of Fremantle or taking something or other to court. No matter what they do though, traditionally the game will end the same way - with the ground flooded by the tears of St Kilda's bravest. But this time, nature stepped in with a pre-emptive strike. With Fremantle on the cusp of a Grand Final the skies opened like a giant Nick Riewoldt in the sky and Victoria blubbed like never before.

As you would expect, the Dockers weren't concerned because they were under the impression that the stadium was equipped with a mechanism for keeping water out - in Western Australia we refer to it as a roof.

Legally the Victorians aren't allowed to use that term because it implies a degree of weather proofing and they don't want to run a cropper from the misleading conduct laws.

And so, the game was delayed as Ian Collins and his ground staff gathered up as many pots and saucepans as they could to stick under the leaks, then put out a press release telling everyone that the ground had never been in better condition and was completely dry with large numbers of ducks swimming on the eastern wing a normal occurrence.

Despite the lofty expectations of the supporters back in sunny Perth, Mark Harvey had his gaze squarely on Rounds 1 through 22 so he took the courageous decision to leave out half the team - particularly the tall blokes who would be first to feel it when bits of the stadium started to fall off. So a team missing Aaron Sandilands, Luke McPharlin, Antoni Grover, Des Headland, David Mundy as well as Chris Mayne and Hayden Ballantyne (who were left at home after everyone refused to sit next them on a 5 hour plane ride), with Roger Hayden and Michael Johnson starting as the substitute players.

As the youngsters who were left were led out by their captain, himself just back from holidays, into the wet, cold, dilapidated stadium, they looked like they'd just been kicked out the garden of Eden. While it was business as usual for St Kilda, the Dockers were naked, alone and looking for some fig leaves to hide their shame.

Luckily for Fremantle, St Kilda have a very high opinion of themselves and, when they kicked a few goals in a row, started dreaming about what they would say when they were given their premiership medals.
 
As Fremantle began adjusting to life outside of paradise, they started to get a few things working. Scos Silvagni had people enquiring about a DNA test to double check the distance between him and Stephen, Clancee Pearce was throwing his weight around back there,, Nic Suban was settling back onto his half back flank, no limbs were falling off of Dodd and Adam McPhee was cementing his place deep in defence by proving he can't play in the centre.

While they were getting more of the footy, they lacked a crumber or two up forward while the big men had made the mistake of throwing their support behind Tony Abbot and were going too far to the right. Eventually Ryan Murphy straightening things up and kicked Freo's first goal, with six shots to five for the quarter seeing Fremantle nearly three goals down at the first change.

Mark Harvey was pretty happy with things. No one had done a knee, no one had been reported and he'd beaten off the ducks on the wing after they tried to steal his whistle. He brought the players in and drew names out of a hat to see who would play where, then spent the rest of the break making cracks about how St Kilda needed the prize money to pay of Andrew Lovett, before putting his wellies on and heading back up to the coach's box.

The second quarter was what the experts describe as a good learning experience for the youngsters. Perhaps confused by the weather, St Kilda were taking things a bit too seriously for game in March and pushing the boundaries of scratch match etiquette to it's limits. With no purple goals, the Dockers defense held up pretty well to the onslaught though, conceding three goals for the quarter, two of which were highly suspicious.

With one point for the quarter, Fremantle's 12 points played St Kilda's 47 at half time.

Everyone is obviously a bit rusty at this time of the season, including the coaches, so Mark Harvey took the opportunity to get some training in on his trademark fiery half time addresses. By all accounts, he stepped straight back in where he'd left off last year and had the players breathing fire when they returned to the ground for the second half.

Helped by the return of Roger Hayden, who'd been wearing the blue substitute vest of shame, Fremantle looked a different side. They'd abandoned the notion of getting some miles in the legs and returned to the dream of winning a trophy that didn't have to be surgically sterilised to get the stench of Eagle off of it.

At the opening bounce, Hayden and Bradley waltzed the ball out of the centre where Morabito got hold of it and unloaded from 79 metres out.  Dodging ducks as he kicked, the ball sailed over the head of the goal umpire for a nine pointer.

The ball returned to the centre where Hayden and Bradley worked their unlikely magic once again. This time Pavlich took a grab at centre half forward. He took a step back and belted it into the stands for another nine pointer and the Dockers were 16 points off the lead.

While the Freo supporter was going mad in the stands, Mark Harvey was panicking in the box (and not just because two ducks had teamed up with an otter and looked like making another play for his whistle). Winning wasn't something the Dockers had contemplated. He didn't want Barry Hall belting his defenders about next week or midfielders gashing their legs on shards of Jack Daniels bottles left over after the ACDC concert.

So the runner went around, told the blokes they'd proved their point that they were better than St Kilda, but to play it cool for the rest of the quarter.

Discipline is valued highly at Fremantle and the players did as instructed, making sure they kept out of trouble while letting the Saints run themselves ragged in March once again so they'd start to trip up around mid July. It was a perfectly executed plan and St Kilda put on another six goals to finish the quarter 48 points up.

Fremantle laughed and laughed as the exhausted Saints staggered into their huddle. But even though they must have seen the Dockers pointing, laughing and doing hilarious impressions of them. St Kilda returned to the ground desperate to keep winning. They kicked a couple of early ones before Hayden decided he'd test his radar out, then kicked a couple more to win the game by ten goals and go on to see if they can score a dance with their sister next week in the grand final.

The Dockers' punishment for losing was to hop on a plane back to Fremantle where they'd spend the next couple of weeks preparing for the season in sunny, thirty degree conditions.