Prior to this game, Fremantle had never won against Essendon at the Telstra Dome, but pre-season this was still being talked up as a good chance for a win. Round 1 showed that assumptions about this year that were based on last year's form were a risky business. Freo, tipped as one of the favourites to make the grand final this year, lost against Port Adelaide at Subiaco, while Essendon managed a pretty convincing win against Adelaide in Adelaide.

In one sense, Essendon won this game in the first quarter.

Looking at the final score, the game was probably closer than it felt for most of the afternoon. Both sides ended up with the same number of scoring shots, and I would even hazard a guess that Freo had more shots that ended up going out of bounds.

The story of this game, in lots of ways was the umpiring. For most of the day, we had two sides each with an attacking style of play, and with good strong forward lines. The only thing that spoiled it was that every time they tried to contest with each other, the umpires found a way to pay a free kick. And the soft free kicks went both ways, that my natural biases mean that I noticed a lot more going to Essendon than coming Freo's way. In particular, it seems ridiculous that Shane Parker can have a free kick paid against him for placing a hand on Lloyd's shoulder and then marking, while there was no free kick to be paid when Fletcher wrapped an arm around Pavlich's waist and dragged him to the ground preventing either of them from marking. But that's the way these things were paid in the last quarter.

Final Score : Essendon 19.8-122 beat Fremantle 17.10-112

© 2007 timnfromoz timnfromoz@hotmail.com

Return to TimN's Home Page