Good luck

[Cyclops]

Good luck tonight guys, hopefully it'll be a good hard contest. Any of you lot come over?

Freo look to have the quality big forwards to win any game they're in, and plenty of class in the midfield too.

Our backline will match up well, its our strength again this year, so the duels like O'Brien or Maxwell/Tarrant and Presti/Pav (or however it pans out) will be a corker.

I reckon your defense is not as strong, but our forwards are very wonky and the big blokes can't kick straight ATM. Medhurst and especially Didak give us real threats on the deck, and if Dids has a good game that'd be the difference.

Our mids have some proven experience (Burns, O''Bree) but a startling propotion of kids. I think the centre line is Pendles, Tooves, Thomas: thats less than 50 games there. Makes Swan look like a veteran and he's still relatively young. Kids give you that energy but they're often highly inconsistant: so far this year we've had some lean patches, but they've never really dropped their bundles which is great.

Our rucks are a bit skinny: Fraser is playing hurt, but he's giving us half a game of quality every week. He'll outsmart Sandilands and kick some goals, but I can't see him actually winning many hit-outs.

Home ground advantage sees us favourites but not by much, and Freo have the avenues to goal to beat anyone. Should be a corker.

 

[Cameron_K]

Can't wait for this one and am hoping for a big game. Good luck to both teams.

The only point in which I would disagree with you is our backline has been the strength in the club for the last 2 or so years. Now with the likes of Johnson, Thornton, Black back and with some game time under their belts things are looking up in that aspect. Grover, McPharlin, Mundy, Johnson, Black, Thornton and Hayden have been very stable for the club and hopefully that continues tonight.

if Freo are to win they need to gain control of the contest in the middle and Sandilands has been much better in recent weeks in regards to getting the ball to our rovers.

The big key for Fremantle is to stop the run from the half back line from the Pies. This is one of the main reasons why I believe Wesbter may be a late inclusion to play on someone like Heath Shaw.

Is gonna be a ripper no matter what happens.

 

[Bigger]

Fraser won't outsmart Sandilands. He will just do as he normally does and play as a tweener forward who goes into the ruck because you have nothing else in that department.

Sandilands will convincingly beat Fraser.

Questions about whether or not it is in fact even remotely worthwhile having a dominant ruck are for after the game.

 

[Ripper]

Thanks Cyclops, Good luck to your mob as well.

I sometime wonder why pies supporters get such a bad rap.

They have won me over in the last couple of years and are more reasonable than most IMO.

Really looking forward to this one.

 

[Topdock65]

Cyclops, same to you mate...

To be honest I find the Pie`s fans great, after returning to Perth after 5 years in Melb and attending the dockers vrs Pies games and catching trams to games etc (remember docker azza ??) .

Never ever any trouble.

Only problem with the Pie`s is Malthouse


Should be a great game tonight !

 

[Ekulman]

good luck tonight guys.

Anyone know what the expected crowd is?

 

[pistol17]

good luck tonight guys.

Anyone know what the expected crowd is?

I heard around the 70,000 mark

 

[Cyclops]

Thanks Cyclops, Good luck to your mob as well.

I sometime wonder why pies supporters get such a bad rap...

Coz we're all c***s

Nah generally we give as good as we get. Up against Carlton and Richmond its strong dislike we get so we give it too. With Essendon there's more respect but still the desire to win, on both sides.

The Freo blokes I first met at Vic Park back in the mid 90's were a decent mob and thats despite the absolute flogging the umps used to give you. We had some easy wins but they were not at all fair.

I've found most non Vics (yes the Eagles and Port people) that come over here pretty decent too.

The massive exception is Adelaide. Boy are they a mean-spirited awful lot. The ones on here are fine but whenever we've played them in Vic the Crows fans were ridiculous, rabid and silly.

 

[ImperialPurple]

Cheers cyclops.


I just received this text from my mate who's over there (the one who reckons I'm impulsive and shouldn't find out the scores in advance of a delayed telecast )...

Loads of passionate purple people here. A nice lady from the enemy camp said she has bad feeling cos every game she has been to in last ten years when they played us, they have lost. I told her the opposite is with me. Every Freo game I go to we win. I told her she should just go home and out her feet up. I reckon we gonna get up. Freo by 27.

 

[Cameron_K]

I must say Collingwood fans especially on here cop a bad rap. I reckon they have the least amount of tool supporters out of any of the teams on here.

 

[estibador]

I must say Collingwood fans especially on here cop a bad rap. I reckon they have the least amount of tool supporters out of any of the teams on here.

I guess the ones that give them a bad rep in real life can't afford computers.

 

[pinkus maximus]

he he

 

[Cyclops]

Funny old game.

You killed us early, Connolly set up some good set plays with Sandilands, and Haselby was turning his taps into great attacks. We held on by the skin of our teeth, event he kids held up under the immense pressure (eg Goldsack on Soloman).

I am in awe of that Pavlich, by God the guy can take a grab. He was leaping from 3 deep, it took double and triple teams to spoil him and even then he snaffled some. Not quite Carey-esque but getting there. No fool on the deck either.

He is clearly playing hurt, and it affected his kicking something shocking. 2nd best player in the league for mine, just a pleasure to watch.

Freo lookeda lot bigger than us, plenty of match-ups were well in your favour for height (apart from Bell), but they didn't seem too slow (apart from the Ogre).

Not stirring but I thought Malthouse outcoached Connolly on the night: once we worked out your centre plays, we started roving Sandi's ball and even got a few taps ourselves.

Tarrant and Pav cut loose but we kept adjusting and finding loose men to cut 'em off. Connolly had no answers for Davis, geez Leon loves playing the WA sides. He must average 3 goals a game vs Freo and WC. Rocca plays his own game, like Richo the only person capable of holding him back is himself.

Something about that cold night air had players spraying shots. Thomas 0.3 from easy shots, Fraser missed or passed away eminently get-able shots, and of course Pav missed many. Only Rocca was comfortable from range.

Taz was goaless but if you hired him to kick goals then the recruiters should be sacked: he is a damned hard worker who will mark, pass, bash, hustle, tackle, and miss goals. He created goals and played very well, better than Medhurst who played a good team game too, fluffed some passes to Didak but mostly contributed.

I think we won because we got an effort from 22 blokes. We played a couple of unfit blokes Fraser and Didak, but Freo seemed to have more. Pav (but why wouldn't you, he nearly won the game anyway) Headland, Soloman all looked proppy from the start. We've found some kids and they are filling the spots (if not the shoes) of Buckley, Lonie, Licuria etc as they age and suffer injury. I had to ask myself, with Soloman huffing and puffing and fluffing and not doing much at all, would Freo be better off blooding a junior?

I guess our youth policy looks smart because we won, but with kids there's usually a durability issue. Thomas never stopped trying but he looks ragged: I daresay a few of our kids will need a rest or we'll get some less solid perfomances before troo long.