Fremantle followed up the disappointing fade out in the last quarter against Essendon with poor game at home against Hawthorn. That run of form, combined with the fact that Freo had never beaten Geelong in Geelong left the bookies offering to pay out $4.75 for a $1 bet on Freo to win the game. Despite that, it was the televised game for the afternoon on channel Ten, so I stayed at home in the comfort of my lounge room and watched.

Bell won the toss before the game, and decided to kick with what was reported to be about a 3 goal breeze. Freo made almost all the running in the first part of the quarter, and put on 5 goals. This included two to McPharlin, including one roving off the pack after Medhurst contested a mark, and two to Ryan Crowley, in his first game of AFL footy. In the middle was a gorl to Farmer, that came from him coraaling and tackling well on the 50m line, and then kicking a torp much further than I thought he could tick for a huge goal.

The rest of the first quarter was an exercise in making my blood boil. Even while Fremantle had been dominating, Geelong had been getting the ball into their forward line, but they had fortunately been missing. Geelong received a series of free kicks, most of which I thought were pretty dubious. The worst one was a free kick paid to Playfair which I can only assume was for Polak unfairly knocking away Playfair's arms using his (Polak's) face, which resulted in Geelong's second goal. The sequence finished with Matthew Scarlett kicking a goal from about 50 right on quarter time, which left Geelong only 9 points behind.

Freo started the second quarter with two goals, with Jeff Farmer involved in both of them. He kicked the first himself after a pass from Medhurst, and the second resulted from him being paid a free kick for another good tackle, which he passed off for Heath Black to goal. Geelong came right back, though, kicking the next three goals to be only 2 points behind. Teh quarter then slowed down a bit, with both sides struggling to kick goals, but both defenses finding it equally hard to clear the ball from the resulting kick-ins. In the end Geelong had a slim lead at half time.

The cats kicked the first goal of the second half, and I began to have my doubts about Freo's ability to go on and win the game. But Connolly had pulled the master stroke. He sent Sandilands to full forward, and the big bloke actually took two marks, both of which ended up being goals, one way or another. The other highlight of the quarter was a free kick plus 50 metres paid against Gary Ablett. Mundy played on and ran round Ablett pretty easily, but in the end the kick didn't amount to much. Still, it entertained me.

Freo were back in front by three quarter time, and the commentators told me that the breeze had dropped, so they were right in it, but I still had doubts. Sandilands kicked the first goal of the last quarter, which helped settle my nerves, but then Geelong kicked the next two. Then Farmer bobbed up again, with another piece of brilliance, working a one-two with McPharlin on the boundary, and then rushing in to kick a goal.

The roller coaster continued, with McPharlin leaping for a huge speckie, but not taking the mark, and being forced from the field. Soon after that, a 50m penalty was paid against Farmer for doing very little wrong that I could see. Geelong peppered the goals, reducing the margin from 7 points to 5. Then Ottens took a mark about 45 metres out, directly in front. He missed. From the kick-in, Freo worked the ball forward very slowly. It almost looke dlike they were running down the clock. Eventually they gave the ball up and the cats brought the ball back in, and in a goalsquare scamble, Chapman was wrestled over the line for a point. The final passage of play then was to work the ball forward once more, but this time it ended up with Pavlich, who put a goal through after the siren to make the final margin a little greater.

The press reports on this game have all focussed on how well Freo played, and I agree that they deserve some credit for the victory. But the reality is that Geelong had a pretty poor day, and even then they could have and probably should have won the game. In the first half of the first quarter, Freo looked very good, but after that the game was pretty even. I think Farmer deserves a lot of credit though. He ended up with three or four goals, but he also worked very hard at keepingthe ball in the forward line where it belonged.

Final Score : Fremantle 14.7-91 beat Geelong 11.16-82

© 2005 timnfromoz timnfromoz@hotmail.com

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