Injuries are a rubbish excuse, Essendon have far more injuries to players who are probably more important than our outs. Their only ruckman (Bellchambers), their star tall forward (Daniher), their star half forward/midfielder (Smith), one of their best established mids (Zaharakis) as well as a plenty more depth and important players. They had about 6 blokes rushed back into the side underdone too like Hurley, Parish and Saad.
They still travelled all the way over here and were untroubled by us. The effort from the Freo players couldn't be questioned but the way they played football and their ability to execute that can. That sits things squarely at the feet of RL.