The West Coast Eagles boldly declared that their season was on the line in Derby Number Forty...and they lost, presumably ending their season and ridding the state of that annoying whining sound for the next 8 months or so. The Eagles threw everything they had the Dockers (which admittedly isn’t much but, God bless them, they try) but Fremantle barely noticed. For the Dockers, it was little more than a sparring session, audaciously resting their backline and barely bothering to set up a defence for large portions of the match. On occasions they even let the Eagles play with a loose man in attack to try and help Adam Simpson build a bit of confidence in his players. An early lead was quickly, and someone humiliatingly, pegged back by Fremantle and the Dockers tried to keep the Eagles fighting on in the second quarter but by the third quarter there wasn’t much more Fremantle could do. The Eagles couldn’t even trouble the goal umpire for a goal while the Dockers gave their home fans something to cheer about with a spectacular display up forward. Freo gave away a few late ones to help the tv station with their lead in to the news but the game was merely a light training run for the Docker and the result never in any doubt.
