The horror. The horror.

When the national anthem finished and the crowd erupted, expectations were reasonably high in regards to seeing a decent game of footy. A big crowd, a big occasion and a rousing pre-game ceremony. No one had any reason to expect what followed. Even if they had, no one could have envisioned anything near the horrible spectacle that was about to unfold.
The whistle blew to start the game and it barely stopped. With three umpires working together, they didn't even have to pause to take a breath in. It was like a bagpipe band. You see more free flowing play in a game of dice cricket, as every contest, every possession, was judged by the officiators to require their expertise to resolve. And in typical style, their expertise generally suggested Fremantle were in the wrong.

It was ugly, it was boring and the only thing doing more damage to the game was Fremantle's kicking. Every time the umps would set Richmond up for a goal, the Dockers would fight back, take a mark inside fifty and then find themselves spraying the kick like Brendon Grylls discussing Troy Buswell's  saucy sex scandal shenanigans.

It started off being an annoyance, as the Richmond goal tally crept it became a concern and by the end of the quarter, when the Tigers had a 26 point lead and Freo kicking 1.5 to their 6.1, it became the Navy equivalent of 'crikey we're in a spot of strife here'.

Mark Harvey went ballistic. Fremantle had gone into this game the shortest priced favourites to beat Richmond since Phar Lap (Phar Lap had raced Jack Dyer as the opener to the 1931 Stawell Gift and was virtually unbackable as Jack had been treated very harshly by the handicapper) and were playing for a spot on top of the ladder. It was supposed to be a percentage booster and where he could get himself on the tv eating a sandwhich and laughing about how terrible the opposition were. Now he was going to have to work - and on Anzac Day.

Freo returned to the ground with no illusions about how much they needed to improve to get back in the good books with their coach, let alone the game. They came out firing and in the opening minute, they'd busted open a pack of Tigers, and Mick Barlow had put the ball on top of Matthew Pavlich. Pav was being held, high, so he only had one arm available to take the mark, bringing down what he thought was a screamer.

For the first time of the evening, the umpire didn't feel like blowing his whistle. The ball spilled free and Luke McGuane made the mistake of picking up. Hayden Ballantyne flung himself at McGuane like a rabid possum, the ball spilled back out to Pavlich and the Freo skipper drilled the goal before taking time out from his busy schedule to give the umpire some pointers on how he could better meet his operational commitments. Lip readers may have picked up the word 'arseclown' which no doubt is some sort of popular Harvard Business School acronym.

It was what is traditionally referred to as a much need goal  but as defiant as it was, it wasn't going to be a game changer. Richmond had gotten a sniff, they hadn't had a sniff since the nineties (with the obvious exception of Ben Cousins) and and had decided they liked this winning caper. They dug in, crowded the Freo runners, tackled hard, shut things down and, God bless their little hearts, almost managed to score a goal.

They didn't though. Pavlich jailed another one, this time from the pocket and Ryan Crowley announced his return to goal kickers circle, taking a screamer then splitting the middle of the big sticks.

By the half time siren they'd kept the Tigers goalless for a quarter but still trailed by 4 points - despite having almost double the scoring shots. They were going to need to do the navy equivalent of 'getting a wriggle on' or they were headed the way of St Kilda and Brisbane, being humiliated by football lepers.

Fremantle knew it wasn't going to be easy to finish off the Tigers. They were playing with a renewed vigour. They were hitting the contest hard, their kicking was spot on, their pressure was enormous and there was every chance that Benny Cousins had been passing around his bucket of mystery pills to his team mates again. They were in for a hard night's work.

They get a lot of things wrong at Fremantle.

The second half started like the game should have. The umpires put their whistles away and Richmond put their aspirations of being a football team away. The Dockers were free to play the game without interference (or 'unaided' as the South Fremantle supporters would say).

Paul Duffield opened the scoring when he dobbed one from outside fifty to give Fremantle the lead. That warmed the crowd up. Then the new bloke,  Nat Fyfe, thought he'd introduce himself by flying over the top of Brett Deledio to bring down a screamer and the house. He followed up the mark with a handy goal and the Dockers were away.

They were winning the ball from the centre, they were passing the footy long and direct. It was magnificent to watch.  Aaron Sandilands dragged in yet another mark and organised the difficult task of dropping the ball onto his boot to bring up Fremantle's 7th before they decided to introduce the Hayden Ballantyne Experience to proceedings.

The Mayor had been yapping away all day. Driving the Richmond players mad. Somewhere along the line, the Richmond blokes got the idea that they could rattle the Mayor by yapping back at him and trying to goad them into a fight. It's like trying to goad a duck into swimming.

After half a game of his mouth, most of the Richmond defenders were petrified of what he'd be like if he kicked a goal and were keen to do everything they could not to find out. With Fremantle firing the ball into attack it was only a matter of time before the Mayor struck. The first time he looked set to kick a goal he was shoved into the turf then,when he got up, he was violently shoved back to the ground. With the free kick and fifty he got his first goal.

The next time he looked poised to score, he was ripped off the ball by Jack Vhitey who then took a cowardly dive to try and get the young Docker and upstanding Mandurhite, reported. He kicked his second goal and the Tigers were on the ropes.

The crowd were excited, the players were having fun, the spectacle of football was back for all to enjoy. That's when the umpires stepped back in. After apparently fixing their broken whistles, they started paying random free kicks again. A more cynical group of supporters might have suggested it wasn't just the whistles that had been fixed but they would have quickly been reminded about how fair and even handed the game was and that that sort of thing just doesn't go on.

Not surprisingly, once the umpires got back in the game, so did Richmond. Two quick goals got them within twenty points of Fremantle and when Sandilands kicked a cheeky one just on three quarter time, a mysterious free kick was paid to the Tigers which returned the three quarter margin to a nice round twenty points.

After such a slow start, you might have expected some tension in the crowd, some urgency in the Freo players, some sort of life in the Tigers but everyone settled into three quarter time with just one question on their mind - how much by? Even the bookies had the Tigers at double figures to get back in the match.

An early goal to Tuck didn't scare anyone. Pavlich replied by kicking one from 78 metres out.

A follow up by Jack Vhitey didn't scare anyone. De Boer went for a fly, took the mark of the week and kicked the goal.

After that, Richmond gave in, Ballantyne kicked a beauty, Pav and Hase dobbed a couple and Fremantle cruised in for a 39 point victory. A nice ugly win to keep them steeled for the derby next week, or Bloody Sunday as they locals are calling it.