No one saw him again till Thursday night. 

 

When he emerged from his darkened room, smelling of warm wine, wearing his darkest sunglasses and sporting a striped pair of pants he had sucked up his courage and knew there was going to be another song for him...for he would sing it. 

 

Sure, he may not have had enough players to field a team and he was likely to lose a few more when Barry Hall went out of AFL footy swinging, not to mention the standard couple that would go down with stress fractures...and the airline were sure to lose his bags and they were probably going to run out of Diet Coke in the coaches box and there was a better than average chance that he’d be the one to stand in dog poo when they went for a training run at Punt Rd but the alternative was to pack it all up, head east and spend the rest of his life sitting in a coach’s box listening to Sheeds bait Choco in outer suburban Sydney. 

 

So he headed out in the purple ute, drove the streets of Fremantle, picked up a couple of young kids (obviously with full parental consent...nothing suss), gave them purplish coloured jumpers and begged the AFL for permission to let them play. 

 

It didn’t take long before things started to go awry. Mark Harvey had glanced at the team sheet and chanced a smile when he saw that he didn’t have too bad a back line. A few seconds later Luke McPharlin was hobbling over to the medical tent for treatment and had to be swapped for Casey Sibosado in the final side. 

 

That also meant SCOS Silvagni would get the job of lining up on Barry Hall in his last game. It wasn’t so much a question of would he get punched but when would he get punched but he wasn’t going to take a backward step. As he wandered out to fullback he walked up to Barry, shook his hands and said “If you can keep up with me, sunshine,  I’ll let you have a few at the end of the day’’. He gave the big fella a wink and set about ruining his farewell. 

 

When the game got going, Fremantle went in with gusto...in the absence of skill, fitness or some sort of a game plan. It didn’t work very well and the Bulldogs got a lot of the ball early  but with Silvagni blanketing Bye Bye Barry Hall and a good support cast running interference, the Dogs weren’t doing much damage on the scoreboard. 

 

Thrilled that he’d be able to tell his grand kids that he played in Byron Schammer’s last game, Casey Sibosado was pretty excited about his AFL debut and came out throwing his uncomfortably chiseled body about the place.  After he got tired of tackling for no reward he dropped himself up forward and waited for the footy to come his way. 

 

Eventually a long, high kick came in from Clancee Pearce, he stuck his big arms up, made a fool of Easton Wood and brought down a beautiful grab. The kick went straight over the goal umpire’s head, Fremantle took the lead and Jack Anthony started flicking through the paper for a rental in Subiaco. 

 

They ran from everywhere to celebrate with Casey which was probably not one of their better ideas. The Bulldogs got a quick reply to take back the lead, as the less than peak fitness Freo players struggled to get back to position in time and those that did were still sucking in oxygen. 

 

The Freo forwards didn’t do too well either. They started butchering the footy worse than the Doggies had been. With a late goal to the Dogs, the quarter time scores were two goals six to one goal six. If they kept kicking like that the AFL were going to have to look at subbing on some new goal umpires. 

 

Mark Harvey was contemplating turning the lights off in the box and putting the Richard Harris record back on but decided against it and went downstairs to give the boys a bit of a rev up. There’s not a lot you can tell blokes, half of who you’ve already decided to cut, in round 24 of a dead rubber in front of a few thousands Bulldogs supporters and some homeless people who security hadn’t bother moving on. He gave it his best though, shuffled some magnets around the board randomly and then went back upstairs to check on the progress of Michael Prior’s shrine to St Servatus.

 

When he got back up the top, Harvey liked what he saw. Not the shrine, there’s only so much even an artist like Prior can do with empty drink bottles, chocolate wrappers and Biros (although the Voodoo Doll he made of Daisy Thomas worked a treat a week earlier). It was his footy team that was impressing Harvey. 

 

Sadilands was hitting his stride, feeding Schammer and Mzungu, while Stephen Hill was burning about the place picking up kicks left , right and centre.  They had their first goal on the board in the opening couple of minutes through Kepler Bradley and his arch nemesis, Zac Clarke, put Freo into the lead a couple of minutes later. 

 

They looked the best of good things. 

 

A bit of buggering about with the interchange gave Barry Hall a breather from Silvagni, which he used to jag a goal from the boundary line but Aaron Sandilands and Kepler Bradley combined in the goal square and Freo had the lead back again. 

 

Buoyed by his work in the goal square, Sandilands decided to stay down there for a bit of a rest. Although he didn’t get much rest. Mzungu and Hill kept kicking the ball at him and he kept having to mark it. He was buggered but no matter how hard he tried to dissuade them, kicking it everywhere but the goals, they just kept kicking it to him. 

 

It’s always a great sight to see a giant taking grabs, not that great aside to see the ball run up the other end and kicked through for a goal. He wasn’t alone though, with Fremantle reaching some impressive heights of craptacular footy in front of goals. 

 

The Doggies got three late goals on the rebound and by half time the Dockers had lost their lead and were sitting 9 points behind. 

 

Mark Harvey had a bit more bounce in his step when he headed down to talk to his team for half time. Mainly because he’d found some of Dean Wallis’s old betting tickets in the back of the box but also because Fremantle looked to have a bit of a sniff. He fancied their chances in the second half, as long as there were no more unfortunate accidents that devastated his playing stocks. 

 

Aaron Sandilands foot started playing up a few minutes into the third. The medical staff weren’t sure whether to treat him or head up stairs to sedate the coach. They opted for Sandilands and Mark Harvey managed to keep his composure and keep the side firing, for a little while. 

 

Mzungu kicked a brilliant early goal to liven up the three blokes in the Fremantle cheer squad who had cleverly devised a system of pulleys and  levers to wave the streamers  but the umpires were making sure Fremantle could get close but not past the Bulldogs. The Dogs fired back with a highly suspicious goal to Jones.

 

Meanwhile, upstairs, Mark Harvey had finally succumbed to the madness and subbed off Sibosado, presumably because he thought he’d fill out the red vest nicely. 

 

His last touch was a beauty though and Mzungu got the ball of him to get it on to Stephen Hill who snapped a good’n and put Fremantle within 4 points. 

 

Once again Fremantle were harshly dealt with by the umpire though, enforcing the very rarely used rule - two players not holding the ball - to set Griffen up for the Bulldogs’ 8th. 

 

The Freo players were less than inspired when Mark Harvey came down the stairs with pencils in his ears talking in a French accent with all the player name magnets somehow stuck to his face. He’d finally cracked under the pressure of a very long season, he quoted some lines from Fernando, fell to the ground and was carted off by the men in the white coats (there was some doubt whether the goal umpires had the authority to commit him but everyone was just glad someone had put an end to the Abba songs).

 

There wasn’t much a coach could do for the team at this point in the season anyway so the Fremantle players continued on without too many problems. Mzungu got Freo off to another good start with a very nice goal and Fremantle crept closer but a few of the defenders got a bit carried away with the new extreme sport - taking speccies on Barry Hall’s back - it was a fun game and Silvangi won the day outright (although Nic Suban won on weight) as the big bloke looked ready to blow his stack one last time. It cost Freo a couple of goals, to other players and the Bulldogs got some breathing space on the scoreboard.

 

Michael Barlow made another charge for Freo as they pegged back the margin to a couple of kicks but the game was getting late and Alex Silvagni had made a promise.  He’d had his fun with Barry but it was time to let the big fella have his send off, so he feigned a knee injury, let Barry kick a few goals and limped off the ground like a true gentleman.  

 

The Bulldogs took the 4 points and Fremantle headed home to sit in the dark with Mark Harvey for a few weeks. Probably best if they bring their own iPods though.