After 8 years in the AFL, Fremantle finally made their first finals campaign, and this game was the first final in the club's history. In the end, Freo made the finals with enough to spare that they earnt themselves a home final, so I missed any opportunity I might have had to make it to this historic game. Fortunately, not even the Victorian TV people could avoid broadcasting a finals game into Melbourne, so I did get to see the whole game live.

I missed the first couple of minutes of the game on the TV, as I was still making my way home from having had dinner with some friends. Caroline stayed with them, which was probably just as well, given that the game didn't exactly go the way I wanted it to. Anyway, there was no score on the board when I did start watching, so I didn't miss much. The first part of the first quarter was probably the best part of the match for me. Fremantle, and especially Paul Hasleby, were dominating possession, and they scored the first two goals of the game.

The momentum swung later in the first quarter, and from then on Essendon kicked the next seven goals. Fremantle finally managed one at the end of the second quarter, thanks to a slitghtly dodgy call of running too far against Cupido, followed by a 50m penalty against him for arguing the call with the umpire.

Fremantle were arguably still in with a chance in the third quarter, and they started the quarter pretty well. They applied plenty of pressure to the Essendon backline, but in the end they were only able to add one goal during this period. Towards the end of the quarter Essendon managed to break free, and they put on another four goals to make the last quarter more or less irrelevant.

In the last quarter Freo were finally able to score some goals. Medhurst got two, and Pavlich also had a coupel fo shots for goal. But a lot of these efforts came after the game was over, and Sheeds was resting his star players. I think that Essendon styill managed to win the quarter, so even then there wasn't too much for Freo to take out of the game.

After the game, Connolly got the players to head out to the fans and thank them for showing up. Some parts of the media, notable Dennis Cometti have criticised this as showing that the club is willing to settle for a mediocre performance. But the reality is that the fans did their bit by turning up for this game, and getting behind Freo, so they deserved credit. It was the players who didn't really live up to expectations, and it doesn't hurt for them to see that there are literally thousands of people who want the to do better.

WARNING! The bitter rantings of a disappointed fan follow. Yes, I know that Freo got beaten by a side who played much better footy on the night, and that in the Essendon were probably able to keep a bit in reserve, but I'll still feel better after I have had a whinge about the umpiring.

My basic complaint is that Freo got absolutely crucified by the umpires in this game. You always hear in the media that the main thing about finals football is that players have to earn their free kicks. That didn't happen during this game. Fremantle got paid a couple of pretty soft 50 metre penalties too, but Essendon got paid some very soft free kicks. In particular, they got paid two kicks inside their attacking 50 that gave them goals - one for MacPharlin touching Lloyd, and one to Hille out of a ruck contest. A free kick that got paid against Hasleby for a throw, when the replay showed a very clear handball, and one against Headland for tugging Mark Johnson's jumper just before a bounce also had me seeing red.

The main thing seemed to be that the umpires paid free kicks to protect the player over the ball, which is slightly different from protecting the player with the ball. Its a subtle difference, but I believe that it is umpired differently in Victoria than it is in WA. For some reason that I don't understand, a game between a West Australian team and a Victorian team was umpired by three umpires from Victoria. Now I don't really believe that the umpires would have been biased towards one team or another, but surely it is in the AFL's best interests to remove that element of doubt.

Final Score : Fremantle 8.9-57 got walloped by Essendon 15.11-101.

© 2003 timnfromoz timnfromoz@hotmail.com

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