After The Game With Snaps Truly - Rd 7 2026 V Carlton

Giving thanks

On this ANZAC Day, when we give thanks and remember and rather mistakenly link young footballers to old warriors, I Snaps Truly offer this page modestly and with some, but please don’t thank me, sacrifice.

A shoulder injury – a torn rotator cuff and a torn bicep has been nagging away at me for years. I’m not sure where it came from. It could have been Mal Brown trying to rip my shoulder out of its socket to hit me over the head with it or the day Mark Jackson let fly with a karate kick, or perhaps that time I was bitten by Leigh Matthews. Can’t remember. Old wounds reminding us of other times and the careless risks of being young.

So, Mrs Truly had to attend the Len Hall game alone tonight while I sat at home trussed up and frankly, straining to even reach the beer nuts.

The Len Hall game is a marvellous ANZAC commemoration. Reminding us of sacrifice and service and that lest the AFL forget, sport is just an entertainment and an indulgence in peaceful times.

Freo surely had nothing to fear from Carlton. Bloody Carlton. I won’t take you back to 2020 again and that after the siren travesty or the Gather Round game where Jordy was punished by the umpire for thinking aloud. Bloody Carlton.

Luke Jackson up against the former Docker Liam Reidy was not going to be much of a contest in the ruck and Freo completely dominated the early clearances. A free kick to Amiss provided the opener before The Other McGovern got on the end of a wobbly foray forward by the Blues.

Josh Treacy was the dominant story early. He charged out from full forward, marked, and goaled and then moments later crashed to the ground with what seemed like a serious elbow injury. With occasion-appropriate resolve, he waved the trainers away and presented again to kick his second. Feeling his referred pain keenly, I admit I may have mistaken the beer nuts for something stronger.

Freo were in charge and we waited for them to bust the game open.

Luke Jackson was about to do just that. At the start of the second quarter he won the tap, bolted forward, received the clearance handball and then goaled on the run from the fifty. A wonderful Goal of the Year contender from the big man. As we would learn in his post-match interview, Dogga loves playing footy, he loves his mates, he loves being in the ruck and he clearly loves being really bloody good at it.

Amiss then bedazzled us with a huge kick from the pocket and when Bolton found Treacy, who now had three, Freo looked to be doing it easily.

But Bloody Carlton hung in there. Brennan Cox missed a spoil which gave Brodie Kemp a goal. And then a blocking free kick, again against Cox gave Kemp another. The Other McGovern added his second and the margin tightened again.

Freo extended the lead to twelve points at half time, thanks to the Gangly Goggle Meister, who kicked his first goal for his new club. He does look to be truly one of a kind. If there were indeed any more, we might have reason for concern.

It was goal for goal in the third, Freo doing enough but not enough to shake off their opponents. Jeremy Sharp, auditioning again for the Jesus Christ Superstar role formerly played by James Aish, was an unlikely scoreboard contributor with two vital goals. The lead a comfortable 18 points at three quarter time

We’d waited all night for the home side to put this one to bed and it was Shai Bolton who did just that.

In an outstanding few minutes, he burst from the middle to kick two of his own; he then fed it to Freddy whose finish was a beauty and another clearance found Reid who threaded it to Jackson who scored on his non preferred left foot. Four goal involvements and fifteen disposals in the final quarter from the man who would later win the Arthur Leggett medal.

The margin had blown out to 42 points at which point, tired and emotional, I may have lost consciousness – consequently I had almost no memory of the five goals that Carlton apparently poured on to give the home side a scare.

I do remember the Gangly Goggle Meister marking again near the end, kicking the goal, and then suddenly attacking a Carlton player for being, I presume a Bloody Carlton player. Fair play to him. They’ll never convict. I’ll get Kerry Stokes onto it.

So Freo got it done again. Winners by 14 points. Six wins on the trot. Away to the wounded Bulldogs next week before a real challenge against Hawthorn at home the week after. War is hell, but footy is fun.

By the way, do you mind reading this for me? Does it say take one a day with a meal or as many as you can gobble down with a handful of beer nuts?

Yours barely coherently,

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 2026 season.

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