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As the home and away season drew to a close, the equation for Fremantle was simple. Beat Carlton and they won a home final.
From there, they’d dispatch of either Hawthorn or Carlton again before heading over to Melbourne to storm over the top of the injury ravaged Bulldogs. The next week they’d return to Melbourne with Chris Tarrant to give Geelong another taste of the Fremantle style of football with a thrilling win at the MCG. The Grand Final parade would provide a nice distraction before the Dockers headed back to the MCG to play Collingwood. A hundred thousand people would pack into the ground to watch Stephen Hill win the Norm Smith Medal and Fremantle make history with their first AFL Flag.
Celebrations back home would be exuberant yet tasteful as the nation bowed down before their purple masters, for a decade lone reign of the Fremantle Dockers and, of course, the Fremantle theme song would rocket to number one on the ARIA charts. |
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Fremantle have backed up from their weekend off with an efficient, energy saving 1 goal win over Carlton to set up their premiership campaign with a home final. Mark Harvey's plan to rest his starts worked perfectly, with Fremantle returning to the winners circle with some of their best footy since the mid- year break. Carlton scragged, whinged and dived their way through the opening three quarters, embarrassing not only themselves but the entire state of Victoria with their carry on and their inability to play football on a full sized ground, while Fremantle negotiated the heavy flooding to get themselves out to a 5 goal lead at three quarter time. With the game seemingly headed for a blow out. Brett Ratten surprised everyone by getting his team to play football in the last quarter. They caught Freo on the hop and kicked some late goals but a calm and collected Fremantle defence stood tall and made sure the good guys were in front when the siren sounded.
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Last year was a bit of a bust and it can only be put down to one thing - with a new coach, the supporters put too much faith in him. They stopped working the magnetic board, coming up with the perfect match ups and killer moves and weren't prepared to yell out advice to the coach between quarters. Poor old Harves wouldn't have known what to do. So make sure this season you arrive at the game prepared and when you see Mark Harvey walking by, yell out your best ideas at the top of your voice to help him along.
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Fremantle play their last game of the regular season at Subiaco Oval this week. A win will lock them in for one more game at home before the highly anticipated return from Melbourne with a flag and over sized sunglasses in late September. In their way will be the Carlton Blues, or the Blue Bunnies as they’re known around Fremantle way. The Dockers have beaten Carlton in 11 of the past 13 matches including taking them to town earlier this season in a match on their home ice rink. |
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Have your say on how the Dockers players performed on the weekend by rating each player from zero to five or just pop in and have a look what everyone else had to say about the team.
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To save people forking over their hard earned money to the AFL in exchange for a magazine that gets bigger every week, making it harder to get to the only part you actually want - the names of the players, we've introduced the Dockerland Budget.
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Rested, relaxed, tanned and, in one particular case, sporting a nasty rash, the Fremantle stars are back from their holidays and ready to win themselves a flag. Before the finals, though, there's the fairly insignificant issue of getting past Carlton and their jug headed coach. So they haven't loaded up completely, opting to give Crowley and Ballanytne another week off, and keeping Des Headland on standby but Chris Mayne is back along with a few handy types - Pavlich, Sandilands, Hill, Hayden, Hasleby, Mundy, McPhee, Morabito and Nat Fyfe. 10 blokes get the flick with Bradley and Palmer the only regulars to get the chop. Carlton have dropped three players, which coincidentally is Chris Judd's average off the ball. Joseph, Hampson and Yarran come in for Hadley, Walker and Jacobs. No news yet on which pair of sunglasses Mark Harvey will choose but the bookies are reporting that there has been a lot of late money for the Erik Estradas.
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Paul Hasleby has ensured his selection in Fremantle's Premiership side by announcing that this season will be his last. After 11 years in the purple shorts (some of it hanging just outside of the purple shorts) Hasleby will bring to an end a 200 and a bit game career sometime in September. Youth, speed, thick full heads of hair - these are some of the reasons Paul Hasleby has decided not to extend his contract with Fremantle as the aging, portly, publican hangs up his boots.
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