Cheshire Cat
Cancelled
- Joined
- May 31, 2007
- Posts
- 4,569
- Reaction score
- 942
- AFL Club
- Geelong
- Other Teams
- Arsenal, Red Sox, Celtics
In the annual tradition of this wonderful rivalry I present the latest magic works of 'dockerland',
Match report: Freo v Geelong Mark it down. At 2.34pm on the 11th April 2010 the bandwagon was officially declared full. After two wins on the trot, a seemingly endless supply of champion rookies - each better than the last, a no nonsense style of footy and the mob up the road crashing and burning, the fans were coming from everywhere. They came from Fremantle. They came from East Fremantle. They came from South Fremantle. They came from North Fremantle. Some even came from places that didn't end in Fremantle - like Bicton.
What they came to see was the next big thing, the local underdog come good, the punching bag of the AFL that had decided to punch back. In the purple corner stood the Fremantle Dockers. Their opponent stood over in the blue corner. The darlings of the establishment, the champions of the world. The Geelong Cats.
They were the team you had to beat if you wanted to get anywhere and Fremantle knew it wasn't going to be as easy as just turning up.
Fremantle get a lot of things wrong.
At the opening bounce, Aaron Sandilands tapped it down to David Mundy. He 'don't argued' his way out of traffic before giving it back to Sandilands. The big fella gave it a big roost, McPhee marked it and Fremantle had a goal on the board in the opening minute.
The crowd went mad. It was quick, it was easy. Fremantle had these chumps covered.
That's when reality hit home.
A sting of free kicks, a couple of fifty metre penalty and the league's first ever report for pinching, in a continuation of the witch hunt against Hayden Ballantyne, gave Geelong and their good mates with the whistles the chance to square the ledger.
It was going to be a confusing day if you suffered from tinnitus.
But Fremantle had a quick reply when Matthew Pavlich took a fly over the top of Jimmy Bartel and the Dockers were back in front.
Knowing how quickly Geelong can hurt you on the scoreboard, Freo made sure they hurt them every other way. If a Cat picked up the footy they'd come from all directions to bring him to the ground. If the ball was loose they'd send one bloke in to get the footy and three to take out the competition.
Geelong were falling apart under the pressure.
But the better Fremantle played the more pedantic, incompetent and downright cheaty the umpires got. The two tier holding the ball system was in play, the 'ball players' at Geelong had been given free passes to scrag as much as they like and the anatomy of a Fremantle player lacked a head, a back or a pair of legs.
Geelong put on a couple of goals while using their 25 man power play to take the lead but the new Fremantle don't let their spirits get crushed that easily. They stuck to their guns, refused to relent in their pressure and, after a few unsuccessful pings, eventually brought the crowd back to their feet when Barlow made a goose of Jimmy Bartel to put Freo back in the lead.
It was a lead Fremantle would have liked to have taken into quarter time with them but unfortunately Gary Ablett decided to show a few people exactly why the Gold Coast are going to be paying him the big dollars next year, dobbing one from fifty.
Nevertheless, Mark Harvey was pretty happy with the start to the game, not salad roll in the coach's box happy or Saturday Night Fever strutting to the centre happy but quietly confident his blokes were on track. Bomber Thompson wasn't all that worried though. He'd been on the ropes against Freo a few years in a row now but he knew, at the end of the day, his blokes were up to the task - they hadn't spent all those hours practicing their diving and crying for nothing.
As they crossed paths to return to their boxes, Thompson stared Harvey on the eye and said 'Bring it on, Harves'. Harves replied 'that's the gayest thing anyone's ever said to me', had a laugh at him with Chris Scott then got to work at bringing down the reigning premiers.
It wasn't long before the winner became obvious - football. Two great teams at the top of their games going full tilt at each other, Fremantle playing old fashioned, tough and exciting football, Geelong cheating at a level most clubs couldn't even comprehend. It was becoming a game for the often mentioned yet very hard to track down football archives.
The two teams went goal for goal as the lead exchanged hands like a prescription pad at the Eagles. Fremantle would kick a brilliant team goal then Geelong would fight back with some individual brilliance or a highly suspicious free kick in the goal square.
Morabito managed to break the deadlock with back to back goals so when the half time siren came around, the Dockers had gone toe to toe with the best and bested them.
With a handy lead over his arch nemesisand his game plan being executed perfectly, you might have expected Mark Harvey to have been feeling good about things at half time. But Harves remembered the scratch match a few weeks back where the Dockers had Geelong in a similar position before being walloped in the third quarter.
He was right to be concerned.
After a half time gee up from Mark Thompson, which presumable involves him stepping it up to two tones of voice, the Cats came out firing. They put through four quick goals and the Fremantle bandwagon was in danger of being yellow stickered and towed away as the supporters unleashed their disappointment on the side, well, mainly at designated scape goat Adam McPhee.
It was unfolding just as Harves hard predicted. At this rate the game would be over before the umpire even had a chance to report Ballantyne for poking his opponent, ruffling his hair or running with scissors. When Bomber Thompson called for the lunch menu, Harvey knew he was going to have to pull some kick arse moves if he was going to save the game.
He stacked the midfield with big blokes, sent Crowley in to get inside Ablett's head and cleared out the forward line to leave Hayden Ballantyne on his own. It was then only a matter of time before Ballantyne annoyed the Geelong defense enough that they'd simultaneously belt him, giving Freo a much need goal and killing Geelong's momentum.
Just as planned, it worked and Pavlich decided to remove himself from the centre square to return to the easy, glamour lifestyle of a forward. Like the football cameleon he is, he switched back perfectly and got the Dockers back within 8 points. Unfortunately some more suspicious activity from the adjudicators saw Geelong stretch the lead back out to 22 points, though.
There were a lot of gloomy faces about Subiaco as the game started to look like it was slipping away. The sun had gone down, the crowd had gone silent, the Dockers were losing. Everything seemed very bleak around the ground but Freo refused to yeild. Des Headland fought for the footy underneath a pack of Geelong players. As they occupied themselves with kidney punches and knocks to his head, Des fired a handpass out through the middle of them. On the other side was a kid by the name of Stephen Hill. He grabbed the footy, bolted in the direction of the goals and booted it as far as he could, which turned out to be quite a long way and straight over the goal umpires head.
The siren went and the Dockers jogged in to their huddle with three goals needed for a win. The steely determined look of Mark Harvey contrasted with the hesitant, slightly hungry look in his opposite's eyes. It was a watershed moment for the young Dockers coach. If he could turn things around and get home he'd be carried through the streets of Fremantle in the Blessing of the Fleet procession while Victorians tripped over themselves to claim him back. If he couldn't, well, it would be more of the same for him.
One thing Fremantle knew though was that it was going to be a hard slog. The Cats were going to try and shut them down, bottle the game up and make it nearly impossible for Fremantle to score.
They get a lot of things wrong at Fremantle.
The siren started sounding to get the last quarter under way and before it had finished, Matthew Pavlich was celebrating kicking the opening goal of the quarter. He was officially on a rampage.
It didn't take long for the umpire sanctioned square up but what Fremantle lacked in cheating skills, they more than made up for with courage and determination. Stephen Hill produced another of his eighty five metre left foot drop punts, from the boundary line, to get the Dockers back within neck breathing down distance then the Mayor of Mandurah agreed to perform his duties, pulling in a one handed mark then snapping a goal as easy as the rest of us would bend out elbows (ironically, something he struggles with after kicking such a goal).
They weren't in front yet but the Freo supporters could hear the train coming. The boom gates were down and the ding ding ding sound was going ding ding ding. It was only a matter of time now.
Duncan kicked a goal against the flow of play to dampen some spirits ever so briefly but when Hasleby set up Adam McPhee a minute later for the redeeming reply, absolving him of all sins, the Freeeeee-ooooooo chant started to ring out.
When Chris Mayne performed some kind of Bruce Lee style flick-kick of the ball to Stephen Hill, who landed the ball on Roger Hayden's chest (which for some reason was, along with the rest of Roger Hayden, standing in the goal square) the crowd went berserk. Roger dobbed the goal and the Dockers were out to a commanding lead.
Mutiny ended that command quite quickly when another goal against the flow went to Geelong, putting the Dockers a point down as the clock entered the time formerly known as red. Around the ground, Rosary Beads were being jiggled, fingernails were being bitten, hair lines were prematurely receding but the Fremantle players were non plussed by it all.
It was almost like a set play as Fremantle ran the gauntlet of umpire insanity by rushing their own points. First Ballantyne levelled the scores, then Roger Hayden gave Freo the lead. Geelong went into panic mode. Contrary to the graffiti on the Subi toilet walls, they don't like it up em.
Flinchy McPhee gave Freo a 2 point lead with a minute left to play but, despite Mark Harvey strutting along the boundary like Mick Jagger, it wasn't enough to shut the gate.
When the Cats choked at the kick in, Paul Duffield pounced. He scooped up the ball, dropped it onto his boot and drilled the goal.
Freo were home
As to my thread last year. This is one of the more bitter individuals you'd come across on an opposition forum.
Its times like this I reflect on our glory and how much it has churned inside the above.
Credit to Freo thought , beating us on their home deck by 7 points. It surely is the greatest moment of thier history.
Match report: Freo v Geelong Mark it down. At 2.34pm on the 11th April 2010 the bandwagon was officially declared full. After two wins on the trot, a seemingly endless supply of champion rookies - each better than the last, a no nonsense style of footy and the mob up the road crashing and burning, the fans were coming from everywhere. They came from Fremantle. They came from East Fremantle. They came from South Fremantle. They came from North Fremantle. Some even came from places that didn't end in Fremantle - like Bicton.
What they came to see was the next big thing, the local underdog come good, the punching bag of the AFL that had decided to punch back. In the purple corner stood the Fremantle Dockers. Their opponent stood over in the blue corner. The darlings of the establishment, the champions of the world. The Geelong Cats.
They were the team you had to beat if you wanted to get anywhere and Fremantle knew it wasn't going to be as easy as just turning up.
Fremantle get a lot of things wrong.
At the opening bounce, Aaron Sandilands tapped it down to David Mundy. He 'don't argued' his way out of traffic before giving it back to Sandilands. The big fella gave it a big roost, McPhee marked it and Fremantle had a goal on the board in the opening minute.
The crowd went mad. It was quick, it was easy. Fremantle had these chumps covered.
That's when reality hit home.
A sting of free kicks, a couple of fifty metre penalty and the league's first ever report for pinching, in a continuation of the witch hunt against Hayden Ballantyne, gave Geelong and their good mates with the whistles the chance to square the ledger.
It was going to be a confusing day if you suffered from tinnitus.
But Fremantle had a quick reply when Matthew Pavlich took a fly over the top of Jimmy Bartel and the Dockers were back in front.
Knowing how quickly Geelong can hurt you on the scoreboard, Freo made sure they hurt them every other way. If a Cat picked up the footy they'd come from all directions to bring him to the ground. If the ball was loose they'd send one bloke in to get the footy and three to take out the competition.
Geelong were falling apart under the pressure.
But the better Fremantle played the more pedantic, incompetent and downright cheaty the umpires got. The two tier holding the ball system was in play, the 'ball players' at Geelong had been given free passes to scrag as much as they like and the anatomy of a Fremantle player lacked a head, a back or a pair of legs.
Geelong put on a couple of goals while using their 25 man power play to take the lead but the new Fremantle don't let their spirits get crushed that easily. They stuck to their guns, refused to relent in their pressure and, after a few unsuccessful pings, eventually brought the crowd back to their feet when Barlow made a goose of Jimmy Bartel to put Freo back in the lead.
It was a lead Fremantle would have liked to have taken into quarter time with them but unfortunately Gary Ablett decided to show a few people exactly why the Gold Coast are going to be paying him the big dollars next year, dobbing one from fifty.
Nevertheless, Mark Harvey was pretty happy with the start to the game, not salad roll in the coach's box happy or Saturday Night Fever strutting to the centre happy but quietly confident his blokes were on track. Bomber Thompson wasn't all that worried though. He'd been on the ropes against Freo a few years in a row now but he knew, at the end of the day, his blokes were up to the task - they hadn't spent all those hours practicing their diving and crying for nothing.
As they crossed paths to return to their boxes, Thompson stared Harvey on the eye and said 'Bring it on, Harves'. Harves replied 'that's the gayest thing anyone's ever said to me', had a laugh at him with Chris Scott then got to work at bringing down the reigning premiers.
It wasn't long before the winner became obvious - football. Two great teams at the top of their games going full tilt at each other, Fremantle playing old fashioned, tough and exciting football, Geelong cheating at a level most clubs couldn't even comprehend. It was becoming a game for the often mentioned yet very hard to track down football archives.
The two teams went goal for goal as the lead exchanged hands like a prescription pad at the Eagles. Fremantle would kick a brilliant team goal then Geelong would fight back with some individual brilliance or a highly suspicious free kick in the goal square.
Morabito managed to break the deadlock with back to back goals so when the half time siren came around, the Dockers had gone toe to toe with the best and bested them.
With a handy lead over his arch nemesisand his game plan being executed perfectly, you might have expected Mark Harvey to have been feeling good about things at half time. But Harves remembered the scratch match a few weeks back where the Dockers had Geelong in a similar position before being walloped in the third quarter.
He was right to be concerned.
After a half time gee up from Mark Thompson, which presumable involves him stepping it up to two tones of voice, the Cats came out firing. They put through four quick goals and the Fremantle bandwagon was in danger of being yellow stickered and towed away as the supporters unleashed their disappointment on the side, well, mainly at designated scape goat Adam McPhee.
It was unfolding just as Harves hard predicted. At this rate the game would be over before the umpire even had a chance to report Ballantyne for poking his opponent, ruffling his hair or running with scissors. When Bomber Thompson called for the lunch menu, Harvey knew he was going to have to pull some kick arse moves if he was going to save the game.
He stacked the midfield with big blokes, sent Crowley in to get inside Ablett's head and cleared out the forward line to leave Hayden Ballantyne on his own. It was then only a matter of time before Ballantyne annoyed the Geelong defense enough that they'd simultaneously belt him, giving Freo a much need goal and killing Geelong's momentum.
Just as planned, it worked and Pavlich decided to remove himself from the centre square to return to the easy, glamour lifestyle of a forward. Like the football cameleon he is, he switched back perfectly and got the Dockers back within 8 points. Unfortunately some more suspicious activity from the adjudicators saw Geelong stretch the lead back out to 22 points, though.
There were a lot of gloomy faces about Subiaco as the game started to look like it was slipping away. The sun had gone down, the crowd had gone silent, the Dockers were losing. Everything seemed very bleak around the ground but Freo refused to yeild. Des Headland fought for the footy underneath a pack of Geelong players. As they occupied themselves with kidney punches and knocks to his head, Des fired a handpass out through the middle of them. On the other side was a kid by the name of Stephen Hill. He grabbed the footy, bolted in the direction of the goals and booted it as far as he could, which turned out to be quite a long way and straight over the goal umpires head.
The siren went and the Dockers jogged in to their huddle with three goals needed for a win. The steely determined look of Mark Harvey contrasted with the hesitant, slightly hungry look in his opposite's eyes. It was a watershed moment for the young Dockers coach. If he could turn things around and get home he'd be carried through the streets of Fremantle in the Blessing of the Fleet procession while Victorians tripped over themselves to claim him back. If he couldn't, well, it would be more of the same for him.
One thing Fremantle knew though was that it was going to be a hard slog. The Cats were going to try and shut them down, bottle the game up and make it nearly impossible for Fremantle to score.
They get a lot of things wrong at Fremantle.
The siren started sounding to get the last quarter under way and before it had finished, Matthew Pavlich was celebrating kicking the opening goal of the quarter. He was officially on a rampage.
It didn't take long for the umpire sanctioned square up but what Fremantle lacked in cheating skills, they more than made up for with courage and determination. Stephen Hill produced another of his eighty five metre left foot drop punts, from the boundary line, to get the Dockers back within neck breathing down distance then the Mayor of Mandurah agreed to perform his duties, pulling in a one handed mark then snapping a goal as easy as the rest of us would bend out elbows (ironically, something he struggles with after kicking such a goal).
They weren't in front yet but the Freo supporters could hear the train coming. The boom gates were down and the ding ding ding sound was going ding ding ding. It was only a matter of time now.
Duncan kicked a goal against the flow of play to dampen some spirits ever so briefly but when Hasleby set up Adam McPhee a minute later for the redeeming reply, absolving him of all sins, the Freeeeee-ooooooo chant started to ring out.
When Chris Mayne performed some kind of Bruce Lee style flick-kick of the ball to Stephen Hill, who landed the ball on Roger Hayden's chest (which for some reason was, along with the rest of Roger Hayden, standing in the goal square) the crowd went berserk. Roger dobbed the goal and the Dockers were out to a commanding lead.
Mutiny ended that command quite quickly when another goal against the flow went to Geelong, putting the Dockers a point down as the clock entered the time formerly known as red. Around the ground, Rosary Beads were being jiggled, fingernails were being bitten, hair lines were prematurely receding but the Fremantle players were non plussed by it all.
It was almost like a set play as Fremantle ran the gauntlet of umpire insanity by rushing their own points. First Ballantyne levelled the scores, then Roger Hayden gave Freo the lead. Geelong went into panic mode. Contrary to the graffiti on the Subi toilet walls, they don't like it up em.
Flinchy McPhee gave Freo a 2 point lead with a minute left to play but, despite Mark Harvey strutting along the boundary like Mick Jagger, it wasn't enough to shut the gate.
When the Cats choked at the kick in, Paul Duffield pounced. He scooped up the ball, dropped it onto his boot and drilled the goal.
Freo were home
As to my thread last year. This is one of the more bitter individuals you'd come across on an opposition forum.
Its times like this I reflect on our glory and how much it has churned inside the above.
Credit to Freo thought , beating us on their home deck by 7 points. It surely is the greatest moment of thier history.
