North Melbourne needed a win in this game to keep their finals hopes alive. Coming into the game they were half a game out of eighth spot. Dean Laidley billed as the grand final for them for the season. A win was also important for Freo, partly because they probably still needed anothe two wins in the last four games of the season to be sure of making the finals, but mostly because assuming Freo does make the finals, at some stage they will need to be able to beat good Melbourne teams in Melbourne, and this was a good opportunity for them to do that.

It was a bright sunny day in Melbourne, so I took myself off to the MCG to see the game. The other aspect of this game was that the AFL had decided to make this weekend "Heritage Weekend", so all of the clubs were lining up in old-fashioned style outfits. For Freo, this meant that they played in an outfit that looked to me most like a South Fremantle uniform. Apparently this was the original Fremantle uniform, from before they split into South Fremantle and East Fremantle.

Despite having both Simmonds and Sandilands in the side, Freo started the game with Justin Longmuir in the ruck. It seemed to work out pretty well for Freo, and they scored a couple of goals and looked to really dominate the game to start with, before North kicked back into it late in the quarter, and Freo actually ended up trailing at quarter time.

Freo started the second quarter the same way they started the first - doing all the scoring. Freo put on three goals in a row at this stage of the game, with the highlight being one to Troy Cook. Cook took a mark on the wing and then got flattened by Archer. Much to my amusement, the umpire paid 50 against Archer, which took Cook to about 50, and he was able to goal from there.

The remainder of the second quarter was much less fun for me. The umpiring during this period got to be pretty dire, and North were able to benefit directly from it. The first incident was a passage of play inside Freo's defensive 50, where I thought there were three holding the ball decisions that could have been paid Freo's way, and the final decision was a free kick paid to Wells for a tackle that was too high. Wells didn't score, but the final result was a goal.

The next bit I didn't like was a marking contest between Paul Medhurst and Jess Sinclair. Sinclair took the mark, but the umpire ruled he had pushed Sinclair out of the way. When Medhurst argued, the umpire paid 50 against him. To be fair, the marking contest was at the far end from me, so I have to take the radio commentators word that the free was unfair, but the 50 for arguing always bugs me.

The final one was an absolute shocker. Matthew Carr had the ball inside Freo's defensive 50, and he got whacked by an attempted tackle that went straight into his nose. Still stunned, and still with the ball, Carr kicked outside 50. The umpire ruled that this was advantage, since he had played on and still had the ball. The ball went straight to a North player and came straight back in, eventually resulting in a goal.

In the end North Melbourne went in to half time with a one goal lead that I think was more than they deserved. Possibly not much more than they deserved, but definitely they had had the better end of the umpiring carrot.

The third quarter went differently to the first two. North were dominant more or less from the start, and by the start of time on, Fremantle were four goals down. Even worse, the Kangaroos had a couple of opportunities to blow the lead out even further. But Freo finally started to claw their way back into it. Medhurst snapped a goal after turning his opponent inside out, and then Bell kicked a goal from a throw in, and Freo were able to go int a three-quarter time with a small sniff of a chance.

All of the press has written up how much the final quarter was due to Pavlich, and he certainly did a bunch of good things, but to me that under-estimates the efforts of some of the other Freo players. In fact there were a couple of occasions where Pav tried to do too much by himself. In particular, about half way through the last quarter he took the ball at the centre circle and dashed to the edge of the square before getting pulled up for running too far with it. On the other hand, he did kick two goals during the last quarter, and send up Troy Longmuir for the goal that levelled the scores, so there is no question that he had an impact.

The final quarter was a bit of see-sawing affair, with Freo clawing their way back in to it, to draw level, and then North kicking a couple to undo all of Freo's good work. But Freo were able to come back one more time. When we went into time on there was exactly one goal the difference, and the commentators on the radio started talking about how well North have done in the close ones this year, and how that would see them through. What they neglected of course was that Freo had had two one point victories in the last month, and they weren't going to let this one go. A goal to Troy Longmuir with about a minute to go levelled the scores. I heard Troy on the radio on the way home saying that he had thought that one had put us a goal ahead, which is why he carried on like a goose. There was more work to be done though, and it was Des Headland who scored the point that turned out to be a winner, from a set shot about 40 metres from goal.

Peter Bell spent the last quarter playing full back on Adam Simpson. I don't know which of the coaches came up with that idea, but it probably worked out best for Freo. Justin Longmuir in the ruck seemed to me to work. He got very high. He only had the one goal for the day though, so he might get a rest soon if he's not careful. Trent Croad went missing in action again. Farmer and Medhurst didn't have much on the score board, but I reckon they were still pretty handy. Headland looked good for once. In fact, I have never seen him play badly, but never really well either, so it was a nice change from him. The backline players all looked reasonable solid, but its not like North have a world-famous forward line, so its hard to say how well they played.

Final Score : North Melbourne 15.8-98 were defeated by Fremantle 15.9-99.

© 2003 timnfromoz timnfromoz@hotmail.com

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