After The Game v Geelong, Rd 22 2024 - With Snaps Truly

It should have been a great day. A chance for Fremantle to put behind the disappointment of letting the Essendon game slip. A chance to reassert its top four credentials with a fourth consecutive win over Geelong.

And Yours Truly would watch it all from the luxurious perspective afforded those who have seats in The Locker Room.

I was only there because my wife knew someone, who knew someone and they knew someone who had a spare pair of tickets and we met under the cover of darkness in the carpark of the Watergate Hotel last night to collect them.

What a view. Our seats, were situated so close to the players I very nearly took a couple of key intercept marks, before The General roared at me “I’ve got this Snaps.”

“Fair enough mate, “I shouted back, before being gently cautioned by some official who took my name.

There we were, me and the boy among the good and the great and perhaps one or two of the soon to be investigated or publicly shamed. Most of them looked as if they really loved their footy, and only a couple of them looked as if they just really loved their phones.

We even got to watch the Freo players run out. And it was then I realised that not only had Sean Darcy been pulled out of the game, that Matt Taberner had clearly won the “Be a Docker For A Day competition” and was going to play.

Again.

Months after I’d sent him to the farm.

Seemingly for good.

Suddenly I felt ill at ease. This was indeed retro round, and the Taberner selection was surely proof of that.

And just like the old days, we began terribly and conceded four early goals.

Jeremy Cameron showed his class from the boundary and then some guy with a headband kicked one and then some other guy with a headband kicked another.

We’d barely parked our bums on our cushioned seats and yet Geelong already looked dominant.

Caleb Serong, who sadly would prove to be our only forward of note for the match, kicked our first goal and when Jordie Clark in his 100th bombed one from 50, Freo at least went to the break only 13 points down.

A nice move from Switta to Fyfe found Freddy, who kicked our third, but Gryan Miers responded with a beautiful snap.

Although Gryan isn’t a real name and the goal should not have counted.

Moments later, Hayden Young repeating what he did last week, exploded out of the middle and kicked another magnificent six pointer and when Clark delivered to Sturt, the scores were tied up.

All of which should have been calming, but Geelong’s Shannon Neale was gifted a goal after the umpire declared he had marked the ball, even though most of us in the crowd had our DNA all over it.

Freo six points behind at the half.

Goals to Dogga and Serong again pushed Freo into the lead in the early stages of the third quarter, but we did not look convincing.

We struggled to get the ball out of our backline and when we did go forward, we kicked long and high into a very crowded forward line, where the Freo talls kept flying for the same ball.

The Cats defenders were adept at sweeping it away to runners on the outside.
We were dropping marks and double handling the ones we held. We were pressured into errant handballs and showed very little composure.

All the old vulnerabilities.

Pat Voss managed to produce a moment that was both brawny and brainy and he found Amiss who again gave Freo the lead. At the final change we were four points in front.

Why didn’t we feel better about it? Surely, we would come home with a surge because there was so much at stake and 50 thousand people were demanding victory.

Nope.

Patrick Dangerfield who played a blinder of a final term, kicked the goal that gave Geelong the lead, and even though Serong pulled one back, a sensational Cats goal by Neale pushed the visitors ahead.

And they were not to be headed. Today they simply looked cleaner and classier.

I should mention that Matt Taberner did something at one point in the final quarter. He took a mark or something and then he did a kick that went to someone and mercifully he was then substituted and replaced by that girl named Raygun who earlier in the day, whilst competing in the Olympic Breaking, appeared to have a seizure while lying on the ground pretending to be a kangaroo.

So, like for like with Tabs.

In the end Geelong won by only eleven points, but that margin flattered us.

Right now, it looks as if the equation is simple. No Treacy and No Pearce. No Fremantle when it matters.

I’ll be back on Level Five for the last home and away game against Port. I should never have got ahead of myself or thought I belonged in The Locker Room.

Sometimes you can sit too close. And this was ugly.

I’m off to the farm.

He’s not coming back next time.

Yours Truly,

Snaps Truly.

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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