After The Game With Snaps Truly - Rd 20 2025 V West Coast

I remember the old Derby days. Often bitterly.

Where Freo fought and usually lost to an Eagles team that ran through a banner that read “We Own This Town” and offered a stage for Ben Cousins and Daniel Kerr and several others to strut their magnificent stuff and smile their magnificent triumphant smiles.

The Derby.

Where “little brother” was again to be reminded of his place and in the unlikely event of a victory it was dismissed anyway, because Freo had clearly “already played their Grand Final.”

Up in the Subiaco corporate boxes, resource industry CEOs toasted yet another win; this time the defeat of Kevin Rudd and his crazy mining tax proposal and drank champagne with Our Julie who would become the Eagles number one ticket holder and Australia’s foreign minister, whilst dressing beautifully and decrying feminism at the same time.

Everything was perfect. The West Coast brand had never looked so secure.

So, what the hell was I watching on Saturday?

Their banner was to be unfurled right in front of me. It said nothing that mattered. A ragged group lined up on either side for the player run through, looking not so much as cheerleaders but lost souls waiting for a soup kitchen to open.

A thin gruel to be stirred with another wooden spoon.

And yet, for all that I was surprised how many West Coast fans showed up.

Maybe today would be their Grand Final.

They scored first through Jamie Cripps, probably the last genetic link to the good old days, and moments later Isaiah Dudley had Freo’s first, thanks to some clever work from Murphy Reid.

This would be Murphy’s best performance of the season. A beguiling blend of footy intellect and daring is calculated inside that headband. He gathered more than 20 possessions for the afternoon and set up multiple scoring opportunities – rather too many of which Freo missed. But more on that later.

After a slow start Freo dominated the opening quarter. Amiss jumped all over a defensive error to goal – he too would have an excellent afternoon – and Freddy converted from a tight angle and moments later danced around a couple of defenders to kick his second.

Add two Hayden Young goals in quick succession and Freo were doing it easily. 28-point leaders at quarter time.

I’m not going to waste words on the second quarter. Freo kicked 1.6 while the Eagles managed 3.0. it was as complacent as the numbers suggest.

Indeed, just to show my magnanimity, I want to talk about a moment of exquisite football in the second quarter from Harley Reid. Wearing a tight tag from JOM, he managed to run onto a loose ball, accelerate away and then unleash a powerful right foot goal.

He’s young, he gets distracted and he does dumb things, but imagine what the 24-year-old version of him will be like. Outstanding.

And probably elsewhere.

Oh, and to those Freo fans who boo him. Stop it. It’s such an empty gesture. And it makes us look insecure; which to be fair many of us still are, after thirty odd years of reliable failure.

Freo were comfortably ahead at half time, but there wasn’t much to get excited about. Nor in the third. 3.6 for the term and too much fiddling about in the backline allowed the Eagles easy goals.

As Justin Longmuir would say later “we couldn’t hit the side of a barn.”

That said, there was one huge upside. And it was the return of Hayden Young. He can play the big bodied midfielder and distributes the ball magnificently. And he also really likes a goal. He kicked three, before being subbed out and was a worthy winner of the Allan-Glendinning Medal.

Freo banged on eight goals in the last quarter to finally put their stamp on the game and a ten-goal victory seemed assured. That West Coast were allowed to manage three in a row right near the end, left the coach nonplussed.

Longmuir still needs Freo to find a killer instinct that has not yet revealed itself. Tellingly, across the weekend, GWS, Gold Coast and Adelaide, all managed to find theirs.

Yes, Freo got the four points and ordinarily a 49-point victory over an old enemy might be cause for celebration. But no longer.

Julie Bishop’s Eagles have long flown the coop. These days they look a lot more like the Michaelia Cash version. Wondering where the hell the good times have gone and squawking angrily into empty air.

How utterly delightful.

Carlton at home next week. We need a ten-goal win.

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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