After The Game With Snaps Truly - Rd 17 2025 V Sydney

A few years ago, I was watching Freo playing at home.

We weren’t at our best. Neither was I.

From ragged memory, it was only a couple of weeks before I was sent to Italy for a short stay at the Sanatorio per gli Illusi in Florence – the Sanatorium of the Deluded.

Like an old leaking hose, I remember hissing “Bloody Michael Walters” as he turned the ball over, or didn’t compete hard enough; according to my exacting, but never personally realised standards.

Both my children, who until now I’d considered the most adoring of creatures, suddenly turned on me like animals.

“Dad, shut up!” they cried in unison. After which my daughter added the stinging rejoinder “What is WRONG with you?”

So, it was no surprise, when Son Son called time on a brilliant 239 game career – succumbing finally to a knee that could no longer be trusted – both kids posted their very real sorrow on the family WhatsApp chat.

And such was Michael Walters’ remarkable talent and longevity, it dawned on me that they barely remembered a Freo side that didn’t have him at its very heart.

And soul.

Farewell and thanks Son Son. May you one day – and one day soon – get to drink deeply from that Premiership Cup.

But I’m just not sure when that will be.

At the SCG on Sunday, Freo were to concede first use of the footy for most of the afternoon. And it would cost them dearly.

How dearly? By half time, five of Sydney’s eight goals had come from Grundy led, Warner grabbed, centre clearances. Quick, clean decisive victories out of the middle that produced emphatic results on the scoreboard.

To make matters worse, Caleb Serong was completely nullified by the pesky James Jordan, who twice ran off and kicked vital goals of his own.

When Freo had the footy, they did on occasion, move it well. A nice connection between Amiss, Freddy and Treacy produced a lovely opening goal and when Jacko marked brilliantly, earned the 50 and Voss ran off and kicked our second, the scores were tied.

Sydney immediately responded and kicked the last of the first term through McLean and the first of the second through Jordan.

Treacy hit back with another and while the scoreboard showed the Dockers were there or thereabouts, they were unable to take the lead.

At any point.

A garbage free kick and goal to Warner for holding the ball against Erasmus – after he had his head ripped off – and then the sight of Nick Blakey, picking up the ball, running the length of the straight at Flemington with only one bounce along the way and then converting – had me lightly gnawing the furniture. Something I hadn’t done since I was a child.

I momentarily stopped chewing the armchair when Freo took the ball from a kick in and delivered it to Amiss who after three goalless weeks, marked and kicked beautifully.

Now look …

Noone wants Jye Amiss to succeed more than “I-must-have-something-in-my-eye” Snaps Truly, but the fact is, he keeps missing what he used to kick. And his failure to kick goals in the last quarter cost Fremantle the lead and the psychological advantage that would have come with it.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The margin at the half was 17 points. Shai Bolton in his 150th game, had at this point not even touched the footy, but in the third quarter he went into the middle and immediately won Freo first use. And the goals came.

Serong, Jackson, Dudley and Murphy all hit the scoreboard as Freo stayed close. But Sydney kept responding.

When the barnstorming Jackson kicked another, just before the three-quarter time siren, the margin had been cut to eight points.

If Freo were good enough …

But frankly they weren’t.

Patrick Voss was subbed off to bring JOM into the game. And as he sat forlornly on the bench, the Prancing Pony looked a bit more like Bambi being told his mother had been shot and killed by hunters. How tough this game must be sometimes.

What followed was tight and tough and at one stage the scores were again tied up, but McLean would kick the first and last goals of the term to keep the Swans in front.

Those misses.

Amiss twice.

Dudley once.

And Frederick on the run, told the story of a team that tried hard but lacked the composure to get the job done.

And with that, such is the tightness of the race, Freo tumbled out of the eight. All the top teams managed to beat those below them – except us.

There was one lovely moment after that Dudley goal, when he gave us the M for Midland that Michael Walters so proudly offered in moments of triumph. How we missed Son Son and his beautiful kicking and composure out there today.

Next week, it’s the Hawks at home. Yes, it is our first loss in seven games, but …

Is this the beginning of the predictable and irresistible slide?

Is that my wife on the phone to the Sanatorio per gli Illusi in Florence?

Please Footy Gods no.

Yours, (looking for some sandpaper and furniture polish or at least an opportunity to blame the dog),

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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