This game was played at the Telstra Dome, so I could have actually gone along and watched it in person, but I had thought the game was on the Saturday night, so I made other plans for Sunday. I think this means that I still have a 100% record of jinxing Freo against Collingwood though, so it was probably just as well that I didn't go.

However, because it was a Collingwood game, Channel Nine gave me a delayed telecast that I was able to video and watch back as often as I liked. Amusing as it is to watch Collingwood lose, it actually wasn't that great a game, so I just watched it the once.

Apparently this was Shaun McManus's 150th game, making him the second player, behind the Parker legend, to reach that mark for Freo.

The second quarter had a bit of drama. Polak took a mark inside 50. Troy Simmonds and Anthony Rocca had a bit of a chat before the Little Sausage took his place on the mark. Polak missed the kick, and turned away with his hands on his head. Sausage Junior bumped him fair in the middle of the back, and Polak went down. Presumably the umpires didn't see it, because there was no free kick forthcoming, but it did provoke a bit of a wrestle on the forward 50. While that was going on, the Collingwood fullback went with a short kick in that was cut off by Clive! drifting across like he was waiting for the kick. Sadly Clive missed his shot too, but it was humourous.

Other highlights came from the interactions between the players and the crowd. Early on in the second quarter Brodie Holland kicked a goal and followed the ball between the posts to wave his finger at the Freo fans behind the goals. There is a great shot of one of the Freo fans standing up and pointing out the scoreboard, where the Pies were still a few goals down, to him. At the other end, later in the same quarter, Jeffrey Farmer had about three shots at goal in a row, all of which ended up as points. The Collingwood fans down that end suggested that Jeffrey's head might not be getting as much of a workout as the rest of him, to which Jeffrey replied, via sign language, that the Pies fans were still having a cry after losing their second grand final in a row. As Dennis described it later in the game, Jeffrey was "like a flamenco dancer after a coffee break" which summed it up pretty well.

For once, my whinge at the umpiring is not solely directed at decisions that went against Freo. Medhurst had a couple of occasions where he was very lucky not to give away free kicks in marking contests, and, in general, Fremantle got paid some extremely soft free kicks. The truly bizzarre one though, was the weekly "he's too tall" free kick paid against Sandilands. This week it came from a kick that Josh Fraser had from just outside 50. Josh got a bit close to Sandilands, and it was touched off the boot, but the umpire whistled it back and let Josh take it again. The excuse apparently was that a player ran across the mark as Josh was kicking it, which was true, except that it was a Collingwood player who did it, so it was hard to see why Freo should be punished for it.

Final Score : Fremantle 12.16-88 beat Collingwood 7.12-54

© 2004 timnfromoz timnfromoz@hotmail.com

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