After The Game With Snaps Truly - Rd 19 2025 V Collingwood

First of all, an apology to you for taking so long to get over a hit-on-the-head-with-hammers hangover and some light bruising to the kidneys. I take full responsibility for the first, but none for the second, for which I was the innocent injured party.

All I remember is telling a harmless joke from my old friend Mick.

A Collingwood fan is walking down the street wearing one thong. A passerby asks “Oh, did you lose a thong mate?” The Collingwood fan says “Nah, I found one.”

Well bugger me, if it wasn’t on for young and old after that.

Truth is Freo had just beaten Collingwood by a point in perhaps the most captivating comeback in more than thirty years of not having very many captivating comebacks.

~
And I was there. Sitting among 60 odd thousand people, fifty-five thousand of whom were decidedly so.

There were fat, hairy blokes wearing Nick Daicos jumpers. Alongside them sat brittle angry women with voices like chainsaws; who still carried the deep regret they hadn’t married Peter Moore and had a nice boy like Darcy instead of that idiot Dwayne, who even now, was picking at his self-inked tattoo of Brayden Maynard which had started to ooze again.

But I couldn’t deny them. They were supporters of the best team in the land and they were playing at home at the MCG and they knew – we knew – Collingwood carried the natural advantage of holding the partners of umpires, taped and trussed in some dark corner of Victoria Park, never to see the sun again, unless soft free kicks would hand early goals to Mihocek, Sidebottom and Elliott. Which duly happened.

At one stage the free kick count was 10-2 in favour of the Pies. They were winning the obvious, the 50-50 and the highly improbable. And still fans held up pictures of the umpire’s incarcerated loved ones, lest they not be better rewarded.

Not that Pat Voss was troubled by any of it. From the moment he galloped away from Moore to dribble through Freo’s first – or marking strongly on the lead and kicking the goal, he was in for quite the afternoon. Three first quarter goals on his first run at the MCG.

Freo was doing well to stick close early. The Pies had all the running and the ball was constantly in their forward line. Freo’s defenders – Ryan and Cox particularly, kept taking intercept marks and releasing the danger – but the ball kept coming back.

Schultz was awarded a free kick for a high tackle against Karl Warner who then apparently pointed to the scoreboard – which was enough for him to be punished with a 50-metre penalty. Yes, the rule exists. It just hasn’t been used this season. Collingwood led by 13 points.

Freo kept fighting and were incredibly efficient when they did go forward. Goals to Amiss and the mercurial Voss kept the Dockers in touch going into the last quarter. The margin just 9 points.

Collingwood fans began to boo.

Not since the West Coast Eagles last played in the AFL a few years ago, had I seen a sense of entitlement like this from footy fans. And it truly is generational. A four-year-old behind me, his face smeared with Red Fanta did nothing but boo in my ear for the entirety of the second half.

He was still booing, albeit accidentally, when Hoskin – Elliott and then Allen goaled a minute or so later to give Collingwood their biggest lead of the match.

And their eleventh goal.

Their last goal.

That eleventh one.

Really?

You better believe it.

Freo had to go for broke and they did.

Serong was huge in the middle and Jackson even bigger.

JOM scored first and then super-sub Young shovelled an over the top handpass which enabled Amiss to take a contested mark and goal.

Back to ten points.

Voss then beat Maynard to kick his sixth and the game was really on.

As for me? It was time to stand up and start shouting stupid and dangerous things.

“Have you noticed, how quiet it’s getting in here folks? Is something going on?”

I didn’t care anymore. I wasn’t scared of these bullies.

Obviously concerned that the tide might turn, Maynard was somehow given a free kick for pushing Murphy Reid into the day after tomorrow, but still Collingwood could not find a goal.

When the raking left foot of Young found Jackson – his goal had remarkably lifted Freo into the lead.

It was frantic and fantastic. And just a tiny bit unbelievable.

In the dying minutes …

Opportunities went begging at either end, before Shai Bolton earned a thoroughly-deserved-they’ve-been-doing-it-all-day free kick for a high tackle.

A goal might settle it.

He kicked a point.

But still Freo led.

Again, the Pies pushed forward and the ball ended up with Schultz whose kick towards goal landed in the desperate and magnificently reliable arms of Josh Treacy. Doing what he does best. Saving games.

And when the umpire, whose marriage was probably over anyway, had no choice but to notice Darcy Moore had dropped his knees into the kidneys of Treacy, the fifty-metre penalty took Freo to safety and perhaps …

Perhaps, the most magnificent win in their history.

~~~~~

I don’t really remember much else.

Apart from having the brilliant idea of going to the most famous pub in Melbourne to celebrate and antagonise and then climbing onto the bar with a sea of murderous looking Collingwood fans below me.

And then asking them.

“Why do you blokes think I’ve chosen this most esteemed hostelry to mark a famous victory?”

They growled and shouted unpleasant things.

“Do any of you know the names of the two players who combined to kick the last goal of the game?”

They growled more. Poor sods. Dumb as.

“Do the names Young and Jackson ring any bells?”

After which I bade them a fond farewell and fell elegantly into the drip tray.

Congratulations you magnificent Dockers. A most satisfying day.

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.

~ If you’d like to COMMENT on this or any of our stories, don’t hesitate to email our Editor.

~ WHILE YOU’RE HERE –