It had been a big week in Fremantle. They'd had a couple of wins in a row and the latest one had been a come from behind Derby. Derby weeks always take it out of the players, spending the lead up winding up West Coast players in the media (and in person), having a brief rest while they actually play the game, then a long three days after the match cruising around Western Australia rubbing as many noses in their victory as possible. Some will tell you sending Dean Solomon up in a sky writing plane to spell out 'Up Yours Worsfold' over the CBD is going too far - most will tell you it's not going far enough.

So, after slogging it out all week long, Fremantle were looking forward to their midseason holiday to the Gold Coast to take on the Blues.

Interestingly, some cheap flights from Tiger saw the players take a short detour to Vietnam where they had some silk replicas of their playing gear tailored for them and, the locals were very impressed when Freo were given permission to take to the field in them.

But it wasn't the high sheen outfits of the Fremantle players that kept the attention of the Queenslanders, it was the football display Fremantle had decided to put on. They went in hard at the opening bounce and the Carlton doctors were worried early that they hadn't brought enough spare blood.

It didn't take long for the first Carlton casualty, with the opening few seconds and some well chosen words from Chris Tarrant enough to send Brendan Fevola running for a change of underpants in the opening few minutes.

It was of little consequence though, with the ball looking unlikely to spend much time in Carlton's forward line. Fremantle had brought their fast running, free flowing, exciting game plan to town (instead of the stand perfectly still and hope the rotation of the Earth forces the ball through the goals which they'd tried early in the season with little success). Unfortunately, Luke McPharlin and Roger Hayden had read a lot of WA press during the week and had formed the impression that scoring shots were more important than actual goals.

After several efforts by Fremantle to extend their number of scoring shots, Eddie Betts got a lucky bounce and put the Blues in front with a goal.

Fremantle took the opportunity to compose themselves and an eighty metre pass, while running off Chris Judd, from Garrick Ibbotson hit Roger Hayden on the chest. Roger kicked the goal and the Dockers took back the lead.

A wink, a nod and the secret handshake at the bounce saw Chris Judd ushered through for a goal but Fremantle were once again rewarded for their dominance with a couple of quick goals to David Mundy and Luke McPharlin.

Zealous and bold, Fremantle had the Blues worried as they headed towards the first break with a handy lead. Paul Hasleby was working on his Brownlow acceptance speech as he picked up kicks between sentences, Brett Peake was making his old man look ordinary, Aaron Sandilands was once again laughing at the idea of an opposition coach thinking he could play someone on him who was 'better around the ground' and Chris Tarrant had already pulled Fevola's new pair of shorts down around his ankles.

With all that on show, the locals were taking to the game like Janet Woollard to fascism and the word around the Gold Coast was that plans were being drawn up to fit another 10,000 people into the new grandstand. It must have been a big disappointment for them then, to see the game spoiled by a very suspicious umpiring decision which saw young Stephen Hill stripped of the ball and it given to Richard Hadley to kick a goal on the siren.

Fremantle went into the break with a 2 point lead but the fear in the Carlton players' eyes was clear for all to see. When they returned to the ground for the second half they set themselves the task of turning that fear into despair as quickly as possible.

Brett Peake had put the first boot into the Blues with a goal on the run in the opening minutes. He brought the ball out of the centre at the next bounce where Aaron Sandilands tapped it down the throat of Stephen Hill then sat back and watched as Hill danced a merry dance around Carlton's entire defence before snapping through goal number two for the quarter.

When Matt de Boer and Ryan Murphy combined to put Fremantle 21 points in front, calculators all over Fremantle went into over drive (and shoes and mittens came of in South Fremantle) as supporters tried to work out just how many goals were needed to push up into the eight.

It looked to be turning into a rout but, in hindsight, it still wasn't the best idea for the runner to send calculators out to the Fremantle midfielders. Carlton managed to move against the flow and, while Hasleby and Schammer were working out how to write boobless, Waite and Murphy snuck through two quick goals.

If it were back in Perth, the Freo murmur would have been doing the rounds of the ground, freaking the players out as the supporters lost their nerve but, being the Gold Coast, the only thing doing the rounds of the ground was the beer cup snake and a leopard print clothed Warrick Capper. So the Dockers were free to resume the shellacking (except for Scott Thornton who'd spotted Warrick in his leopard print pants and had to go down to the rooms to throw up a little bit). Bolting down the ground, Paul Haslbey spotted Byron Schammer, crossed the ball to him and then jogged back to the centre while Schammer slotted through the goal.

Back to a comfortable 13 points in front, Fremantle were once again caught up in some unusual umpiring decisions and had to endure the third billed Cloke brother kicking a goal but they picked the goal back up when Luke Pratt followed the lead of Hasleby and set Schammer up for a monty.

Carlton were proving harder to pull away from as the Dockers had first hoped though. Every time the Dockers would use their superior skills, better tactics, bigger hearts and better looking rookies, Carlton would scramble a goal against the flow of play and usually with the aid of some highly suspicious umpiring. This time was no exception and Waite scored from the goal square after Grover was deemed to be breathing in a threatening manner.

The positive of Carlton kicking a goal was that it returned the ball to the centre where Aaron Sandilands could weave his magic, setting up the Freo little blokes to bedazzle the once rated Chris Judd.

This time was no exception and when they got the ball out to Peake, he booted it long into the forward line, Luke McPharlin took care of the Carlton defence and Scott Thornton dashed his way into an open goal, still tasting the bits of that morning's coco pops that he'd recently Cappered all over the changeroom wall.

It was time to break the goal for goal cycle so Freo set on the Blues midfielders as soon as they got the footy. One after the other, the Carlton players were sacked until one of the umpires finally broke the pre-game contract not to give the Dockers any free kicks, and rewarded Hinkley for his hard work. Hinkley looked up, saw two giant arms in the skyline and sent the ball flying in the general direction. On the lead from full forward, Sandilands plucked the ball down, strode back and dobbed Fremantle's 10th.

Hinkley tried the same thing again out of the centre but unfortunately Murphy doesn't quite have the marking skills of Sandilands and the ball left the area in the hands of Carlton, rocked up in Jarrad Waite's hands and was put through for a goal with 3 seconds left on the clock to cut the Dockers half time lead back to 13 points.

Local knowledge is an important factor when faced with a national competition and, having never been to the Gold Coast, Fremantle could have done with some better advice when they decided to forgo the cordial and oranges at half time and head for the $9.99 All You Can Eat Seafood Buffet from the motel-inn they'd been staying at. Particularly when Harves had the idea of saving a few dollars and stocking up the eski so he only had to pay for one person. Even more so when it appears he did it 7 hours before the game.

The Fremantle players didn't return to the ground moving well. Scott Thornton had to start and remain in the centre in case he copped another eye full of Capper's pants. Luckily for them though, the Carlton players had over heard Luke McPharlin talking before the game and had fallen for the story about the team with the most scoring shots being the real winners. Not since Kenny Judge had worn the pink and yellow had Carrara seen goal kicking that bad and, once the bucket had been passed around to all the Fremantle players, they made Carlton pay with a steadier from Dean Solomon.

Fremantle may have taken first honours with the two flags but Carlton had come out all guns blazing, working hard to shut down Fremantle's free flowing, hard hitting, exciting, what the fans pay good money to see after a long week working for the man style of football.

They bottled things up and tackled Fremantle hard and were more than well rewarded by a set of umpires who were lucky to have one eye between them. But for all Carlton's efforts (and 3 extra players) they still lacked Fremantle's class. As the Dockers switched things up and played cool, calm, thinking football, they passed the ball down the wing - from Tarrant to Suban to Sandilands to Mundy to Barry Johnson sitting behind the goals in row 7 of the John Gastev stand.

Fremantle had pushed it back out to 19 points but when Carlton fall that far behind, sadly, Chris Judd is contractually obliged to put in an effort. He got the ball out of the centre and into Carlton's forward line where an unfortunate series of event saw Luke Pratt forget who'd drafted him and handpass the ball to Chris Yarran in the goal square. Yarran kicked the goal and once again the Blues had shaved six points from what should have been Freo's lead going into the break.

It wasn't quite the 83 point lead that Fremantle supporters had been expecting but if they were at all concerned about Carlton, Fremantle weren't showing it. They'd had Carlton's number all day, they'd answered every challenge, still had plenty of legs and the umpires couldn'tpossibly get any worse.

Geed up after a rousing address from Mark Harvey, Fremantle came out firing. Unfortunately they weren't firing very straight and missed a few early chances to bury the Blues. When it did come time to put the first nail in the coffin though, it was no surprise that it was something a bit special - head over the ball, a clean pick up and then a perfect kick from a tight angle - what was surprising was that it was Ryan Murphy doing all that. Who knew.

Fremantle moved out to a 22 point lead. If it were a Derby the ground would have been clearing out by now but at some point in their history, Carlton seem to have gotten it into their heads that they are always a chance against Fremantle and, despite having lost 9 of the past 10 matches against the Dockers, they refused to throw in the towel and let Freo play for percentage.

Fremantle didn't help the situation with their goal kicking skills abandoning them at the unprotected end of the ground and piled on important points but gradually the momentum seemed to shift.

When Brendon Fevola catapulted himself over Chris Tarrant to get his first decent stat against the Dockers full back, then kicked the goal, the tensions levels lifted.

When the umpires started paying bizarre free kicks and fifty metre penalties while standing by as Fremantle players were used as punching bags, tension levels lifted.

When Carlton forwards starting finding the ball and some space, tension levels lifted.

When Aaron Joseph snapped a goal at the 25 minute mark to bring the margin back to 9 points, people started freaking out.

The ball went from pack to pack as the dockers desperately tried to scramble the ball out of Carlton's half and keep it safe till the siren. A loose ball to the wrong player, a dodgy umpiring decision, a tackle slipping high, a freak kick from the pocket - anything go could wrong as the ball refused to go a safe distance from their goals. Then there was the travel factor, the derby hangover, the injury list, the strange new ground - what about the siren!? Had anyone checked that the siren was loud enough? It was too much to take.

But through it all, the Dockers defence stood tall. Unbreakable. After an exhausting 5 minutes (and probably quite a tiring five minutes for the players) the siren sounded (faintly) and Fremantle had held on by 7 points. The bench cleared and Fremantle celebrated like only young men on the Gold Coast can without being forced into a job in the theatre.