AFL Round 22: Freo, give song heave ho before finals

And Greatness Is upon us…the 8 teams are now left to jockey for positions in the last round and history is made when for the first time ever when 10 teams miss out. Make the most of the finals opportunity or waste it at your peril…

Speaking of Timmy Rogers and greatness how about Zeus and his compatriots running the AFL reward Mr Rogers and You Am I and give them the top billing at the MCG on Grand Final Day. That would save some face after someone left the meatloaf out in the rain last year!

And if anyone dares to question Fremantle’s credibility for the Finals well grab a copy of yesterday’s North v Fremantle game and how well they played without their supposed star/best player/skipper in the Pav. Doubts had lingered that he would play, even before Carlton’s Gold Coast nightmare and a sham fitness test confirmed as much 100 minutes before yesterday’s game. A fit and firing Pav might well add to Freo’s quest, but the questions will still be asked about their legitimacy when the finals start, especially if an interstate final is set. Ross Lyon has added some steel and resolve to an often wayward group of players.

The ‘heavy metal sea shanty’ they call a club song is still not a good sound for the end of the game nor the beginning for that matter. It should get the old heave ho! You gotta realise that whilst ex-coach Chris Connolly might have some hard rock sensibilities (as a player he had a fair mullet!) but you gotta get with the times. They should enlist some of WA’s finest musos to get a new song like Freo diehards Eskimo Joe, or perhaps the Dugites, the Electric Pandas, Supernaut (reword: I Like It Both Ways!) or maybe even WA-born brothers called Farriss – while they kill time looking for a new INXS lead singer. This has to be done before they win a flag cos that song would currently be the first Premiership song that the MCG Trust would refuse to play on principle.

Rd 22 FEARLESS:  Maths & footy supporters don’t mix. If we win by 200..

Richmond had the chance to finish the year strongly and Essendon had the chance to arrest a losing streak when both sides met on Friday night at the G. The Tigers started strongly and the Bombers continued to get more soft tissue injuries to challenge and frustrate the faithful. Tigers by 45pts. Bombers 2012 now can’t end quickly enough.

St.Kilda hosted GWS at Etihad with a slim chance of finals action still possible. With that in mind, the Saints led by 16 goals at the main change. Arguably they took the foot of the pedal, winning by 126pts but 8.6 in the last qtr signalled intent after an even 3rd. Young Giant Toby Greene got 34 touches for the 8th time – the kid looks 12!

Port got cloaked by the mask of Zorko – 3.2 and 23 stats…Dayne Zorko might just be a Lion star in the making. Port, however, let an 18pt lead slip at AAMI to let Brisbane kick 4.1 to 0.1 in the last to win by 11pts. Whiskas Buddha Hocking let a few home truths out in the presser post match, but most telling…@13500 showed up at home.

Sydney got off to a flyer at the SCG and in its clash with Hawthorn for top spot. A 26pt qtr time lead got bigger, before the Hawks got their mojo back booting 7 goals before ½ time. From there, it was goal for goal and a true clash of two teams that will be deep into Sept. Hawks by 7pts. Buddy returned after 6 weeks with 4.3 – watchout!

Dane Swan returned to the Pies team that travelled west to tackle the Eagles at Subi. 27 stats an OK return for Swanny – short of a gallop or even a trot, depending on how you view his gait. The Fijian Pogo Stick led the Pies a merry dance, as did his Eagle mates after ½ time – 9.9 to 4.1. Shuey, Butler and Kerr led the Eagles to a 49pt win.

The Blues headed to Club Metricon to take on the Suns. Luggage: Check. Form: Check. Juddy: Check. Desire to Build %: Check. Desire to Destroy Coach: ??? The upset of the year might have had roots in a team thinking that it just had to show up to get the 4pts and a finals berth. Gazza Suns, unfazed, gave Carlton the Blues by 12pts.

Geelong hosted the Western Puppy Dogs on the back of retirement of two veteran Dogs, Gilbee and Hargrave. As good sides do, the Cats paid scant regard to this and led all day. The Pups gave a good account with Skinny Grant kicking 3 and Christian Howard kicking 2. The Cats by 34ts – good to see Adam Cooney back to near his best.

Given the sudden turn of events the night before, Freo had now a chance to rest its battered Pav with a finals berth all but stitched. Sure enough, the Purple People eaters devoured Kangaroo fillets by the truckload on their way to a resounding 53pt win. The Roos were in it until 10m into the last as Freo stamped its credo as a finals player.

Brad Green played his last game for the Dees and had to contend with “nasty” tweets from Aker about the ‘quality’ of his career as Melbourne played Adelaide. Fair dinkum Aker, it’s called relevance deprivation syndrome and you are the poster boy! Green got chaired off the G with some pride, even if the Crows had won by 69pts.

Comments

  1. Long-time Freo supporter Tim Winton once said something like every other team’s club song just sounds like a “knees-up mother brown from previous eras”. The Suns and the Giants have also recently harked back to that old-time era of songwriting. I’m totally biased but reckon Freo’s ‘heavy metal sea shanty’ is the best of the most modern team songs (others being Power and West Coast), so it doesn’t make sense to say they need to “get with the times”. I’ve always felt the 80s rock feel and the line “we’re the rollers, we’re the rockers” is a damn good fit for Freo, given one of the city’s major cultural landmarks is Bon Scott’s grave. Heave ho.

  2. Richard Naco says

    Freo’s song?

    * HEAVE! *

    “Oh …”

  3. Fearless
    I must confess I’ve got an absolute bias to the old-time VFL club songs, but you’ve got me thinking that another “in depth analysis” akin to my Latin mottos rant might be in order here. Watch this space!

  4. Skip of Skipton says

    An old Russian shanty ‘Song of the Volga Boatmen’, is what Freo’s song is adapted from.

  5. The ‘Volga Boatmen’ refrains no longer feature in the team song. Members voted on an updated version of the original late last year; it’s slightly faster, and no longer contains the Volga-inspired ‘heave ho’ dirges, most notably the intro.

  6. i like the Freo theme song, i have it on my ipod!

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