Channel Seven did give us free-to-air coverage of this game, but it had to wait until 11:30pm for a start. Fortunately, the game was more or less worth watching, for me at least.
Stynes played with a broken finger (of course!). Mann played because he'd recovered from a broken finger of his own, after something like four weeks out. No prizes for guessing which of the two had a greater influence on the game. And Melbourne still lost!
Melbourne's injury woes continued when Neitz broke his jaw early in the second quarter. Well, to be more exact, Neitz's jaw was broken, as the result of a fairly hefty bump from Fremantle's hard man, Craig Callaghan. Looks like Woosha Worsfold got off lightly!
As would be expected, Fremantle pretty much dominated this game from start to finish. Melbourne stayed with them in the second quarter, and in the fourth some pretty poor kicking from the Dockers, with the Dockers adding 3.6 to Melbourne's 3.1, made them look like they were in it.
Apart from the missing Mann, Fremantle's forward set-up looked pretty good. Winnie Abraham was back. According to Dennis Commetti, this was because the game was at the WACA, and Winnie is apparently a "WACA specialist". Certainly he had a pretty good idea where the goals were located, kicking 3.2. Daniel Parker also played well, and kicked 3.2 of his own, and Quentin Leach kicked a 3 goal haul as well, though without ever really looking as good as he did against Richmond.
The other exception up forward was Clive Waterhouse, who took some pretty good marks, but who really needs to learn to kick. 1.6, most from set shots, is just the kind of effort that makes even Mann look good.
Which just leave Jeff Farmer. Whatever his skill level may be, whatever the rights and wrongs of calling a black c**t may be, the fact is that he is a dirty player. Clearly the correct response when he kicks you while you are down is to just say nothing. Certainly the AFL sees it that way. And fortunately the Freo players saw it that way too. It seems to me that calling him a few names is a lot less serious than what I saw him get away with during the game. Now perhaps thats easy for me to say, given that I'm not Aboriginal, but its seems to me that 'Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me'. I would certainly think that a few names would hut a hell of a lot less than the toe of his boot in your ribcage.
Final Score : Fremantle 17.22-124 defeated Melbourne 10.9-69
timn_from_oz
© 1997 t.neame@trl.telstra.com.au
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