It's not just bad umpiring that gives another side opportunities and momentum. The players getting pinged then have no idea how much or little contact they can initiate without upsetting the itchy whistle of the umps. The other side also know they can get away with almost anything before a whistle is blown. The mystery whistles a la Kennedy just adds to the confusion.
This is a glaring anomaly of the comp. IIRC, The top team has the poorest stats in FOR frees. The next two, the highest. Logic would dictate if you're a good team often first to the ball, and take a lot of possessions (which WC, Hawthorn and Freo often do), you wouldn't be getting pinged that hard, but the reality seems to be Freo have won, after hard work against average sides, in the face of lopsided free kicks. When you get the same against a team that can score heavily, you get pounded like we did against WC and Hawthorn. Until the umps start putting their whistles away or giving soft ones in neutral territory to make the numbers look somewhat less obvious.
The only time they didn't do that well was the game against the Bulldogs where we garnered 4 frees for the game. A year later against them, we had 2 frees to 3/4 time. We won both games fairly narrowly, so they slip under the radar, but it was the frees and momentum they gave that keeps sides like that in the game.
