After The Game With Snaps Truly - Rd 16 2025 v St Kilda

Let me begin, by introducing you to Mrs Norma Grimbergen who in season 2025 sits to my immediate right. We are eight minutes into the opening quarter of the must-win match against St Kilda and Mrs Grimbergen with chin tucked into her tiny birdlike chest, is fast asleep.

To her right, her friend Elsie appears to be more engaged. She is staring dreamily in the general direction of the action with a small beatific smile on her face. Or, she may just be responding to the stimuli of light.

At no point during the game will these two ladies move a walking stick, handbag, or skinny leg to enable fat blokes with beer trays or Mum and Dad with two kids and popcorn to squeeze past and take their seats.

Just thought I’d set the scene.

All week we’d been reminded of the last time these teams met, when Ross Lyon’s St Kilda humiliated Fremantle by 61 points back in May.

On that miserable occasion at Marvel, the Dockers managed a paltry 1.1 to half time. Our mids were humiliated and only a few late goals prevented complete disaster. That defeat would prove to be something of a line-in-the-sand moment and a victory today would not only extend our run to six wins on the trot; it would be a barometer of improvement.

But we were playing a team coached by Ross Lyon.

Frankly, I don’t think much of The Great Smirker these days. And while in years gone by, we held onto his every utterance, like “Let the cobblers cobble”, as if it was an ancient Taoist meditation, I now suspect his tactical sleight of hand might just be a trick of the light.

Perhaps that is what dear Elsie was being drawn to, out on the vast green playing field.

But he is good at vengeance is Ross. And he remembers that Freo ignominiously flicked him back in 2019, so whenever we meet, he likes to apply the full squeeze of his malice.

And bloody hell, for much of yesterday afternoon it worked. It was dour, filled with stoppages and goals were hard to come by.

St Kilda, coached by Ross the Fun Strangler.

Josh Treacy kicked Freo’s first couple. One an emphatic set shot, the second a quality snap. Later he would receive a knee to his exposed ribcage and while we feared he would have to leave the ground, or worse start to sneeze, the Big Cahuna merely dusted himself off, sucked in a couple of painful gasps and played on.

And just as he did against North Melbourne a few weeks before, when the game was there to be won or lost, he applied ferocious tackles or managed to save the day on the defensive goal line.

St Kilda were dominating the clearances, but special mention to Sean Darcy who began to look and play like his old self. He took a couple of telling marks, had shots on goal and palmed the ball cleanly. Swag is on his way back.

Both defences were on top and Jordan Clark was again our best afield.

Another special mention to a couple of splendid Swedes. Karl Warner regularly gets clouted around the ears but his willingness to go back with the flight of the ball is commendable if perilous. He played exceptionally well.

But not quite as well as Alixzander Tauru, the young berserk warrior from St Kilda who has the nickname The Flying Viking. Boy, could this kid jump, mark and spoil with spectacular effect and abandon. He looks to be everything Ross Lyon hoped Zac Dawson would become. And probably quite a lot more.

Freo held a narrow advantage at the half and then watched it disappear in the third and when the Saints kicked the opening goal of the last quarter, their lead was out to 14 points.

Oh no, I thought, was The Great Smirker about to smirk again?

Well, I’m delighted to say the answer was no. As the game began to slip, he looked like he just wanted to break the phone.

Cometh the hour, cometh the well beaten midfield and it was Luke Jackson, Darcy, Serong and Brayshaw who wrestled back control for the home side. The goal drought was broken and Freo would hammer home five goals for the quarter.

With Freo retaking the lead and the crowd now roaring, I noticed a barely discernible movement away to my right.

Mrs Norma Grimbergen, who had never once spoken to me or even acknowledged my presence, lifted her chin, and looked across.

“How long to go?” she asked.

I looked into her rheumy old eyes and said, “Look, I’m not a doctor, but I reckon you have about three months left.”

Pause for comic effect.

I did not say that.

You know that.

Instead, I smiled encouragingly and said, “I think we’ve got two minutes left.” She nodded slightly and may or may not have been awake to see Luke Jackson mark and goal on the siren to give Fremantle victory by twelve points.

I then noticed a badge on Mrs Grimbergen’s coat that declared her a thirty-year member of the Fremantle Dockers. And I understood. Who wouldn’t be exhausted by thirty years of …

Us.

Well done, Freo. Sydney next.

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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