It had been ages since I walked into Optus Stadium feeling this confident.
Not anxious. Not filled with the usual frowning, fretting, lip chewing angst.
Freo was going to make a statement on Fan Appreciation Night and would also give us the opportunity to farewell our greatest player, Nat Fyfe.
Nearly 60 thousand of us would be there to witness it.
Freo to secure a finals position and perhaps earn a double chance with victory over the strangely self-conscious and vulnerable.
And the home side set about it by immediately conceding two soft defensive free kicks to give the Lions an early lead.
And then a third free kick goal.
Oh, and later on a fourth; when Brennan Cox off in the far away, apparently did something awful to Logan Morris. Not that they dared show the infringement on the scoreboard lest we become enraged.
At the seven-minute mark of the game, we were to stand and applaud The Champ – despite the fact he wasn’t out there – and as we rose, I couldn’t help thinking how odd it now seemed. Why were we standing and applauding what, so far anyway, had been ‘Seven Minutes of Complete Shite?’
Freo had chances. Many of them. And took none.
Surely, we thought, it was only a matter of time and the dam would burst, the ice would break, the cavalry would arrive or another metaphor be murdered.
Don’t call me Shirley. (Sorry, there is a new Nakend Gun film out.)
And yet, for a sweet ten minutes or so in the second quarter, that is how it unfolded. Josh Treacy, who only ever fails to deliver when he tries too hard, took it upon himself to kick Freo’s first couple. Andy Brayshaw added a third and as we headed to half time, we did so thinking, ‘We’ve got this. We’ll be all over them after the break.’
At the long break Freo played a beautiful tribute to the soaring rocket, the pack-breaking beast, the very nice to look at and ‘wouldn’t it be something if he married our daughter?’ Nat Fyfe.
But they accompanied it with Frank Sinatra drearily banging on about doing things his way and frankly, to me, it felt generationally cliched and lazy and misplaced.
Unless of course, Nat loves listening to Frank when he’s up in his cab and if so, I apologise unreservedly.
When would we see him, we wondered? Surely, we wouldn’t have to wait until three quarter time for Justin Longmuir to inject him into the moment?
But wait we did.
There was to be no second half fight back or much fight at all. Brisbane would storm home, kicking ten goals to two.
They won every ball that mattered and I stopped counting after they took three and a half thousand uncontested marks. They simply tore through the corridor and distributed the ball beautifully to Morris, Rayner, Bailey and Cameron, who would kick eleven goals between them.
Freo couldn’t mark or kick effectively or make tackles stick.
Murphy Reid took it upon himself to kick Freo’s only goal for the quarter and to be fair to the kid, he was one of our best; but when Josh Treacy marked inside ten metres, tried to play on, and got caught, we had all the evidence we needed.
This was a bloody disaster.
Fan Appreciation Night felt more like ‘The Annual Meeting of Fans Being Treated Like Mugs Again.’
At three quarter time, CEO Simon Garlick was called upon to express his delight and gratitude that Freo now has more than 65 thousand paid up members and he did so, determinedly ignoring how woefully underappreciated those fans were feeling tonight.
Behind me, a young fellow who began the evening well enough with some pithy typically Freo self-deprecating humour, was by now, about as sozzled as anyone can be on Single Fin, and kept slurring “It’s just like the 2013 Grand Final all over again.”
And then someone, unnamed but within our area of nasal awareness, who had clearly just won a hot dog eating competition let rip with so much foul-smelling gas, it was if the Hindenburg had just exploded.
This was a sensorial nightmare on every level.
OK. Let’s reset. One quarter to play and The Champ goes straight into the middle. Could we win back some respect at least.
Answer. No.
Well, The Champ did. He won possessions, he fed out handballs and even though we know he has a right leg made of wet cardboard, he worked damn hard to give Freo some use of the footy.
But we could do nothing with it.
Indeed, in the dying minutes, after watching Harris Andrews repeatedly and effortlessly outmark, outthink and try not to laugh at Patrick Voss, many fans decided they had had enough.
They left early.
When it was over, Brisbane were easy 57-point winners.
Players of both sides then lined up patiently as Nat was called away to do interviews. After endless nervous babbling from the ground announcer, Nat finally spoke, and offered up his thanks to Freo on behalf of a ‘skinny kid from Lake Grace …’ etc before the announcer asked him to say pretty much the same thing again, so he did – before running off on a lap of honour and the chance to put some distance between him and that microphone.
As my young Whippersnapper, having grown up as one of the many adoring Nat fans, observed with tears in her eyes “I feel like my childhood has ended.”
It was a beautiful if rather dramatic reflection on the greatness of The Champ.
Next week my other Whippersnapper will be at Marvel to watch Freo try to salvage something. I thank him for his commitment to family service, but fear for his wellbeing.
Where will I watch it from?
Will I be able to watch it?
Will hope once again, kill us?
If Freo really appreciated their fans, they wouldn’t leave us with so many painfilled questions to ponder.
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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