After The Game v Melbourne, Rd 19 2024 - With Snaps Truly

Oh, the pleasure of an afternoon at the footy without doubt or anxiety or the crippling prospect of hope suddenly dashed again.

Instead, we fair bubbled with great good humour and expectation.

Freo was playing for a place in the top four, against a Melbourne side without Max Gawn.

And with no recognised ruckman, just volunteers deemed tall enough to try to make a contest of it, the consequences for the visitors would prove disastrous.

Right from the first bounce, Sean Darcy and his merry band of midfielders gorged on a smorgasbord of opportunity.

Brayshaw, Serong, Young and Fyfe won so much of the footy out of the middle and from the stoppages, that much of the afternoon resembled a training drill.

Across all lines, Freo produced wonderful ball movement by hand and foot and that opened up a rich chocolate box of choice pickings up forward.

Treacy, Amiss and Jackson simply helped themselves; kicking eight goals between them and reducing Steven May and his colleagues to hapless spectators.

Michael Walters, named earlier as the sub, actually played right from the start and he relished the sheer volume of ball coming in. He kicked four goals for the afternoon and The Desert Pea chimed in with another three.

Melbourne only managed three goals to half time, so dominant was our backline, celebrating Luke Ryan’s 150th game.

What a trooper he is; always the first to arrive when there’s trouble and the bravest of intercept marks. One of the best late draft picks in memory.

Alex Pearce’s return was welcome too. Moose took some strong grabs and attacked the footy with the ferocity of a man who just hates not playing. Sadly though, he would succumb again to an injury to his left arm.

Freo led by 30 points at the long break and were it not for the impressive work of Jacob Van Rooyen, Melbourne’s tally would have been pitiable.

Back-to-back goals to Amiss in the third, was followed by a brilliant Brayshaw intercept of a May clearance and when he sent it over the top to the goalward charging Clark, Freo had its tenth.

The game was effectively over. Already.

Freo did mess about a bit for a while and lose some of the earlier intensity, but a 36-point lead at the last break soon blew out to 65 points in the final quarter before Melbourne scrounged some junk time respectability.

I wrote at the outset what a rare pleasure it is to be at the footy, feeling untroubled and calm.

Well, it can never be quite like that.

There is a Fremantle supporter, someone’s lovely granny I’m sure, who sits a few rows behind us and possesses a voice that, to be frank, is truly terrifying to the human ear.

I can barely describe it and nor can I tell you what she looks like, because I fear if I turn around and meet her eye, I will be dissolved.

There is something invented, something almost Dickensian about her. I think her name might be Emphysema Plough. If not, it should be.

Emphysema loves Fremantle. I get that. If Fremantle is winning.

She likes to chant “Come on Freo, come on, come on!” which might sit outside the top ten of best footy chants, but who cares.

It’s when a ball is fumbled.

It’s when a Freo player misses a kick on goal or a tackle doesn’t stick, that Emphysema’s voice fills the air, like the sound of a crazed dentist’s drill, surging sparking and grinding its way into the brains of everyone around her.

Usually there is a buffer zone of bodies that acts as a kind of collective human shield, but not today. Frank and his family were on holiday.

And truth is, Emphysema cares not a jot.

For a woman, who rumour has it, finished third at the 1972 World Screaming Like A Banshee Championships, Emphysema Plough knows what she wants from a Freo match and every week there is hell to pay if she does not get it.

Today I hope she got it. When the siren sounded and the scoreboard confirmed that Freo had won by 50 points and marched into the top four, I dared turn around to see if she was happy now.

Far from terrifying, she wore a huge grin and started to sing “Come on Freo come on, come on.”

And when I looked into her eyes, I started …to sing it too.

Well played Freo.

Well sung Emphysema.

By our multi-talented and amazingly insightful footy scribe, SNAPS TRULY. Snaps has seen and done it all. He may or may not have been a fringe player at Fremantle. Don’t miss Snaps’ report after each Freo Dockers match here on the Shipping News throughout the 2024 season. Here are Snaps’ other 2024 season reports.

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