OK, let’s get straight to it …
Beat GWS and we are playing finals. Lose and we must drag our sorry carcasses around for another week before our last home game against Port.
There’s a reason why Jesse Hogan loomed as such a danger to his old club. Coming in, he’d kicked 61.19 to lead the Coleman and within minutes his vice like grip and Fred Flintstone stutter, delivered two goals to the Giants.
Frankly, Freo was being monstered early and when Cadman took another mark inside 50 and goaled, the lead was quickly out to 18 points.
Freo finally got their hands on the footy. Sturt managed to step out of a tackle, stay composed and put the Dockers’ first on the board.
Moments later, and this deserves an all-caps headline …
FYFE GATHERED AND GOALED.
Yes indeed.
What’s more, Freddy did brilliantly to hang onto a Voss pass and he nailed Freo’s third from outside 50. Somewhat against the run of the game, Freo was just a point down.
Brent Daniels answered from the outside of his right boot and when the siren sounded, the Giants held an eight-point lead.
Freo’s second quarter was a beauty.
A turnover enabled Freddy to kick his second and a few moments later Amiss took a bounce, handballed to himself, and then delivered magnificently to Dogga in the square. We had the lead.
For the Giants, Brent Daniels continued to look dangerous. They were back in front when he took a mark, bolted, and goaled.
But Freo was now winning the contested footy and locking the ball up forward. Serong was tackled high and goaled and then a chain of handballs ended with Voss in the square.
After Switta was clobbered – lightly, to be fair – he kicked Freo’s fifth for the quarter and the lead was out to 15 points.
It took a moment of Toby Greene brilliance to narrow the margin to nine points at the half.
Well played Freo.
It was the Giants turn to dominate in the third. This time the five goal to two advantage belonged to them.
And they did it with two more goals to Hogan and a couple of brilliant individual efforts from the helmeted Jones and then the irrepressible Daniels.
Freo played some good footy. A superb piece of overlap running from Wagner found Amiss who kicked superbly on the run.
He remains such a tantalising but not yet fulfilling prospect. He might have had three for the quarter, but put one out on the full and then hit the post with ten seconds to play.
Freo trailing by eight points with a quarter to play.
Could they …?
No.
But their effort was immense.
Sturt, Serong and Freddy all kicked goals in the final term, but it was Jesse Hogan who won this for the Giants.
He kicked the first goal of the game, the last goal of the game and four in-between.
That sealer came from a 50-metre penalty. A bad error from Banfield as Freo were charging.
Giants winners by nine points.
And, if you’d indulge me …
In last week’s match report, I described Matt Taberner as having won the “Docker for a Day” competition, such was my surprise at his return to the team. I also suggested he was later subbed out and replaced by Raygun, the Australian breaker whose Olympic performances I described as being similar to a kangaroo having a seizure. A like for like swap.
It was a tease and a joke.
But what isn’t a joke is the manner in which so called Freo fans – tense yes, at our precarious path to or away from finals – are howling abuse at players, both at the venues and online.
There is one miserable git who sits near us, for whom going to the football, even when we are winning, is surely one of the grimmest of life’s experiences.
He spits vitriol, snarls and swears and gets reminded that there are kids around him, but it makes no difference to his impotent, anger-soaked view of the game, and probably the world.
I might just add that word impotent again in case he reads this.
Go to any fan site on social media after we lose and players are ridiculed mercilessly by armchair experts, who can never see the irony of their wheezy, belching, profoundly non-athletic selves demanding we “get rid of …” or call on JL to be “sacked immediately” or declare the entire team “absolute shite.”
It’s Ok to shout. It’s Ok to be disappointed; we have lifelong investments in this team, but these kids aren’t widgets. They’re not some win-loss commodity whose only value lies in victory.
We might also do well to remember that a bad game today, might be accompanied, not just by your disappointment as a fan, but by a death threat on their Instagram page when they get home.
That’s the world in which they compete these days.
True, I wasn’t a fan of Raygun’s Olympic performance, but then I learnt that tens of thousands of people signed a petition demanding an investigation into the “corruption” of her selection. And yes, some even wanted her dead.
Frankly, that’s disgusting behaviour.
Here’s an idea, if you sit next to one of these whingers or indeed are one, you and they might be interested to know that Los Angeles is considering a new Olympic sport in 2028.
Apparently, a group of athletes will get to judge a random selection of hysterical, red-faced couch coaches having tantrums, because life doesn’t always give them what they want.
The first to explode, wins.
Play nicely.
Bad luck Freo.
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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