AFL Round 20 – Fremantle v GWS: Educational Expenses

 

Fremantle vs GWS Giants
2:40pm Sunday Aug. 11, 2013
Patersons Stadium

Sunday twilight games from Perth – bit of a weird one, timing wise. The torment of time zones screws the schedule no end. School in the morning, early dinner, showers to be had, readers to be read. The footy becomes background. Tape it I’ll watch it later: along with the twenty seven other things I’ve taped to watch later.

But I want to watch this one. We won last week. We won well and almost more importantly, won pretty. The flow out of the backline and run through the middle was pretty to watch; Jeremy Cameron on the end; Bruce and Haynes taking courageous marks going back with the flight in defence. OK so it was only Melbourne and it didn’t work all of the time but with almost everything GWS the signs are there.

Freo in Perth is not Melbourne in Sydney, but then again, we did all right against Collingwood at the G. I don’t expect to win, but I do expect us to put up a fight and be competitive. The boys have found a rhythm and I want them to stick with it.

Big Tom Downie, only 3 years removed from U17 World Cup basketball duties, makes his senior debut after, from all accounts, absolutely tearing it up in the Magoos. I know it is only the NEAFL but consider, before this weekend the last five games yielded: a one point last minute loss to the Suns at Metricon; a 63 point drubbing of Sydney at the SCG; and a total score of 90:59: 599 to 13:17: 95 in the other three games.

Even in such a reduced competition the boys have hit a patch of form and to say there is pressure for spots in the Seniors would be an understatement; some outstanding players not getting a look in. A testament to the job the boys playing senior footy have been doing.

I am hoping they can keep it up so very far from home.

It’s a milestone game; our Captain’s 50th. At 22, Phil Davis (G1) is the 4th oldest and third most experienced player on the park wearing orange. Oddly though, it is Callan Ward our other captain, winning the coin toss.

Freo kicks a quick one to start and it sets a pattern for the rest of the game. A lot of pressure in tight, tackle after tackle, then the ball pops out the back to a Freo player who snaps truly.

The bubble bursts pretty quickly.

Our good month of footy seems to have been for nought, we haven’t shown up to play this quarter. Freo’s inaccuracy not mattering in the slightest. We just can’t get our hands on the ball and when we do we just aren’t clean with it.

The second quarter is much, much better and we kick five on the trot with some nice movement in the lead up. That’s the way we should be playing. That’s more indicative of our last month. Freo kick a late, against the run of play and quite frankly undeserved, goal with a couple of seconds on the clock. But that is a quarter to be proud of. 24 points at the half.

The way the third quarter starts I’m happy to go cut onions and prepare the meatballs for tonight’s pasta. It doesn’t get any better from the audio I get. In fact it gets a lot worse. Thankfully I was in the kitchen for most of the second half. It wasn’t sounding good.

The pressure and endeavour are not reflected on the scoreboard. By game’s end we have laid a club record 106 tackles. The boys never gave up, but they were just totally outclassed by the 21 Freo players (3 with whistles) on the field. You can see why they are a top four team.

Jezza kicked his regulation 4 goals to move within two of the Coleman Medal lead and showed again why Daniel Talia was a stupid choice for Rising Star last year.

As the game draws to its inevitable conclusion, discussion in the commentary box turns to possible records; firstly Freo’s highest winning margin (112 v Coll: R7 2005) and then most individual goal kickers (16 v PA: R17 2008). They got the first by one and missed the second by the same margin.

It is still small steps for us and today’s game reminds me of that in spades. I’ll take our second quarter and the tackle count out of that and write the rest of it off to educational expenses. All the good footy over the last month has caught up with us.

We just have to move on (Brisbane in Brisbane next week).

FREMANTLE 6.7 8.9 15.12 24.13 (157)
GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY 0.3 5.3 5.5 6.8 (44)

GOALS
Fremantle: Neale 3, Ballantyne 2, Walters 2, Suban 2, Mzungu 2, Fyfe 2, Mayne 2, Pavlich 2, Duffield, Sheridan, de Boer, Barlow, Clarke, Sutcliffe, Crowley
Greater Western Sydney: Cameron 4, Hampton, Smith

BEST
Fremantle: Suban, Neale, Mayne, Barlow, Johnson, Mzungu
Greater Western Sydney: Ward, Cameron, Whiley, Greene, Treloar

Umpires: Burgess, Findlay, Fisher

Official crowd: 31,390 at Patersons Stadium

Our votes: 3: Mayne (Freo) :2: Subin (Freo) :1: Barlow (Freo)

About steve duffy

is in no particular order....writer, artist, graphic designer, library technician, Giants fan, dad, husband, friend, brother, son, reader, lover of music, resident of Penrith, Canberra boy, Raider fan, Brumbies fan, Cats fan, right handed, white with two (coffee) black with two (tea), left of centre.....

Comments

  1. Peter Schumacher says

    I was genuinely excited and up beat myself at half time after that great second quarter.

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