After The Game With Snaps Truly - Rd 2 2025 V Sydney Swans

The optimistic might argue, we led for most of the match.

Had the siren sounded a second or two later, the Jye Amis mark would have been paid. The winning goal kicked.

And thousands of us would have swarmed to the trains filled with joy.

Instead, it was the despair-filled shamble of defeat.

Sure, only the second for the season, but our sixth in a row. And being offered handfuls of nearly and almost and there’s always next week, didn’t seem to comfort departing fans.

“I rock up every year. False hope. And then I just get let down.”

His mate declared, “Just a lot of wasted opportunities. Yet again.”

“All we’re good at”, said another, “is coughin’ up leads.”

The day promised so much more.

This season, Team Truly has moved away from Emphysema Plough and Junior Footy Coach on Level Five and taken up residence on the half forward flank, just ten rows back from the fence.

What a fantastic view. Offering much better appreciation of the sheer grunt and hard effort required to even play this great game.

And Freo didn’t lack grunt or hard effort. We lacked finesse and poise and calmness. And fans might argue, we’ve lacked that for a long time.

Josh Treacy put on a masterclass up forward, but his was a solo performance. Amiss still has all the potential in the world, but he simply doesn’t get his hands on the footy often enough to be truly effective. Not yet anyway.

And then there was Patrick Voss – greatly maligned in the aftermath I thought. Voss reminds me of the first bloke who volunteers to go to war – brave and determined – and probably the first bloke to get killed. He’s eager as, but every time he’s told to keep his bloody head down, he stands up to have a look around.

He made some mistakes. But plenty of players did as we bombed the ball in so many times for such little reward.

It was great to see Shai Bolton out there. His ability to change direction, just might be the thing that helps us change ours.

Afterwards, the perpetually glum Justin Longmuir said the things Justin Longmuir says, but he already seems to be pulling his words from the bottom of a dry well.

I hope he hasn’t run out of ideas. But if he has, I beg him not to take any suggestions from the marketing department.

All week we heard – and were supposedly fascinated by – the news that Freo would choose to play the Coldplay hit ‘Viva La Vida,’ after every goal. And we fans would, instead of singing “Oh-oh-oh” scream out “Fre-ooo” instead.

We didn’t. Because it was such a crap idea.

And we barely kicked any goals.

I really admire the live game-day stuff and the amount of positive content coming from Freo’s social media team, but some of the ideas are just duds.

I know many of you like Coldplay.

But you probably like vanilla ice cream too.

What next? Chris Martin walking into the three-quarter time huddle singing “When you try your best, but you don’t succeed …”

I worry that the Fremantle Dockers are becoming very good at announcing things that don’t really matter and this stuff won’t fix us.

We need a bloody win. And then a run of them.

The Derby next week. The Harley Reids were pretty good against Brisbane and they will meet us at a vulnerable time. We are expected to win, but haven’t yet shown the signs that we are good enough to.

What could possibly go wrong?

By the way, congratulations to Dogga, who performed admirably in his hundredth game. He ran all day and he never gave up.

Which sounds a bit like the start of another Coldplay song.

Please no.

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 2025 season.

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