In this week's edition of The New England Journal of Medicine, there is a paper on some new research into a mysterious disease known as Derbynesia. It's a strange affliction which renders the victim unable to recall any matches between the Fremantle Dockers and the West Coast Eagles since 2002. To avoid catching the disease, doctors recommend the public avoid drinking excessive amounts of chardonnay, driving imported cars, wearing the colours blue and yellow and ringing up talkback radio to discuss what's wrong with Fremantle.

With another epidemic hitting the population of Perth this week, you could be excused for thinking that somehow the West Coast Eagles were a team who Fremantle struggled against. One prominent football insider has even fallen victim, suggesting that Fremantle should show more respect to the team that they keep beating by ever increasing margins.

Last year, the Dockers kicked a staggering 19 goals to beat the Eagles in what was supposed to be a one sided contest the other way. Entering the match, West Coast were touted as having a full strength side that were on track to win back to back flags. Unfortunately for them, they soon had a nasty run in with reality as a fired up and focused Fremantle side run them ragged and gave them a lesson in pressure football.

Lacking discipline and any semblance of structure, the Eagles played like a side that believed their own media department, as Josh Carr lead from the front, playing hard passionate football. Jeff Farmer and Josh Carr kicked 3 goals each while Mark LeCras was aided to 4 goals by the umpires. Paul Hasleby had the most of the footy for Fremantle and Daniel Kerr for the Eagles but it was Josh Carr who took home all the accolades and shiny trinkets with 26 disposals, 3 goals and an unprecedented number of niggles.

Crippled by injury and a prejudiced tribunal, Freo went into the first derby that same year severely undermanned but still confident of continuing their unprecedented string of victories against the Eagles. Unfortunately, they hadn't counted on even more suspicious umpiring than all the previously suspiciously umpired derby's and were pipped at the line, leaving them to start their run of wins all over again in Round 18.

It was a tough result for Fremantle fans who hadn't had to deal with losing to the drug addled mob from up the road for quite some time. The Dockers beat the Eagles everywhere except the scoreboard and the free kick count as their hard tackling went unrewarded, their forwards were left to the mercy of the Eagles unholy whims and the West Coast forward spent so much time falling over it looked like a scene from a Charlie Chaplin film. Matthew Pavlich still managed to get two goals and Josh Carr put through a couple of his own. Steven Armstrong jagged 3 for the other mob. As well as risking the license of a major television station, Michael Braun had the most of the ball for the day and therefore was given the Rosco medal by the panel of very astute judges (just not very astute football judges). Paul Hasleby had the most of the ball for Fremantle with 20 kicks and three or four handballs for good measure. Shaun McManus, Josh Carr and Roger Hayden picked up the 3-2-1 in the Clinton Wolf Medal.

If you're not familiar with Fremantle's Derby dominance in recent times, you're probably an Eagles supporter. The selective memory that comes with an Eagles membership seems to leave them thinking they haven't lost a Derby since Brett Heady was gliding over the top of 17 year olds in green jumpers.

In actual fact, Fremantle have a 75% win record against the Eagles in the past two seasons, 83% if you include the two resounding NAB Cup Victories.

Earlier this year, the Dockers encountered the Eagles in a highly anticipated pre-season cup match. In another complete and utter thrashing of the Eagles, lead by a fired up Des Headland, Fremantle used their opening pre-season match to test out their bodies after a summer of hard work. Kicking goals at will, treating the game like a well drilled training session Farmer, Pavlich, Mundy and Paul Hasleby all kicked multiple goals as the Dockers cruised to a 44 point win and, in the process, contributed to the exhaustion of every excuse the Eagles PR machine had in their arsenal. Des Headland played so well that his Brownlow odds halved and Jeff Farmer delighted all with his return to football.

So far this year, the Eagles have scraped over the line against an under manned, travel wearing, dehydrated Brisbane Lions side just before they were given a Derby style thrashing at the hands of the Adelaide Crows. Adelaide managed to kick 21 goals to the Eagles 8 and win the game by 76 points, relegating the Eagles to the bottom 8 with the 4th lowest percentage.

In their two games this season, Fremantle have shown that they can mix it with the best. Pushing the top side right to the final siren last week and almost knocking off one of the premiership favourites a week earlier, in hostile territory. While yet to win a game, a win on Saturday night is likely to push Fremantle well into the top eight.