Brisbane is a a strange place. Some might say a place of contrasts. It's very sunny and full of shadeless palm trees but they have two heliophobic  gingers coaching their two football teams. They grow millions of pineapples and bananas and yet, if you try and order any kind of daiquiri at one of their local taverns, you'll get belted up. They have a football team, the Lions, sitting in the top eight and yet they appear to be quite ordinary.

And that was the message Mark Harvey would have sent out to his players (not about the daiquiris, they already learned that lesson the hard way) - 'sure these blokes look like busted crabs, sure their forwards are being held up by a series of wires attached to the XXXX blimp, sure Simon Black has been holding together the midfield for so long that his team mates are calling him Simon Grey and sure their defense is based around Brent Staker - but that's no reason to take them lightly'.
Inspirational words, no doubt but when the game got started it looked as if they may have fallen on deaf ears (well they had all been on a small bus with Hayden Ballantyne so it's quite possible they still had the ear plugs in). The Lions got the jump on Fremantle, in an old school style of Gabba football. They carved Freo up through the midfield, pinpointing passes and dancing a merry dance around the Freo players with ball movement so fast it's usually only seen in a Roger Daltree rock opera.

They put on the first two goals before the cool head of Michael Barlow, in game number 7, marked inside fifty and kicked one against the flow of play.

The Brisbane players didn't flinch though and refused to relent in their assault. Two more goals to the Lions had the Dockers 17 points down and in danger of being out of the match before James Sherry had made it back from the Lotto draw.

But when things look like they're getting out of hand, Mark Harvey did what he always does - he opened the window and he shone the Pav Signal up into the sky (thankfully he won the argument with Chris Scott that it was worth paying the extra baggage charges to haul it over).

Within a matter of minutes, Pavlich had kicked two goals, thrown himself into the centre and the game was back on.

In fact, it was better than back on. Fremantle had marched in and taken control of the match. They were beating the Lions at their own game, hitting hard then bolting away with the footy - the bank job technique.

Sandilands took one of his Hands of God marks in the goal square to give the Dockers the lead and you could hear a pin drop at the Gabba. They went quieter than when they heard the news broke that Powderfinger were breaking up and they realised The Veronicas would soon be their most famous band.

Once the Fremantle had the Lions on the scoreboard they decided it was time to crush their spirits too. The kids combined to get the ball down the ground, each of them making a bigger goose of their opponent than the last, until the Hayden Ballantyne spotted up Michael Johnson on the run. With little more than a tinkle in his eye and a faint raise of his eyebrow, Johnson was able to get around three Lions players, balance himself then drill a goal to push Freo out to a 10 point lead and get 30,000 Brisbane supporters to look at their watches at the exact same moment.

A highly suspicious free to kick to Travis Johnson, for the rarely enforced anti-beard ruffling rule saw the Lions get a late goal but Fremantle were more than happy to take the 3 point lead into the first change. They were confident they had Brisbane's measure and were just starting to get warmed up.

When they returned to the ground for the second half, Paul Duffield set the tone for his team mates. A long, high ball was sent out of the middle and into the Brisbane forward line. Fremantle had expected to win the ball out of the centre so all their players had run forward. As the ball floated deep into Brisbane's attack it was just Paul Duffield standing amongst Brendan Fevola, Jonathan Brown and one of their rangas. At any moment Duffield could have been crunched by Brown, felt up by Fevola or come into contact with a ranga but he held his ground, kept his eye on the ball and took the grab.

He sent the ball back down the ground where his skipper took a mark inside fifty and went about kicking a goal.

Unfortunately he didn't go about it very well. He had a second go and buggered that up too. And it became contagious, with the Dockers having the ball on a string around the ground but being unable to kick where it counted.

It was going to the right, then to the left, then back to the right again. It was like trying to follow the British election. In the end, the Mayor decided enough was a enough, organised a  coup d'etat and seized power with the opening goal of the quarter.

Once Ballantyne had set the pace, Morabito followed up to pushed Freo out to a 16 point lead but it didn't take long before the ball was back in Freo's fifty and being kicked through for points once more.

The plus side was that Freo's defensive zone was so good after kick ins that Chris Tarrant and Luke McPharlin were able to pull the card table out (thankfully Taz had won the argument that it was worth paying the extra baggage charges to haul it over) and finish off their game of canasta from the derby.

They were briefly interrupted when Simon Black kicked a goal from the edge of the centre square but pretty soon it was back to business, with the Freo forwards doing some skills work up the other end of the ground.

Fyfe and Palmer were the only two to manage some accuracy before the half time siren but with Fremantle's lead out to 23 points, they were all completely confident that, with the way they were running, the way they were tackling, the way they were delivering the ball to the forwards - there was absolutely no way that the missed opportunities could come back to haunt them later in the game. Not in a million years.

Brisbane kicked two goals in the opening two minutes of the second half. Those missed opportunities had come back to haunt the Dockers.

The margin was in to 11 points,  Brisbane had found their run again, the crowd had hit full voice and the Dockers were a long way from home.

Even the Pav Signal seemed to be on the blink.

But just as Brisbane looked like they were going to storm over the top of Fremantle, Mark Harvey had an idea. He ran off into one of the corporate boxes, stole someone's dinner and held a french cutlet up in front of a flood light. It was the moment Paul Hasleby had been waiting for for years - the Chops Signal.

He pushed his way down to the forward line, told Matt DeBoer where to kick it and then pulled down a grab - as he's a very good mark for his size.  He drilled the goal and gave Freo some breathing space.

It was breathing space they needed too because, while they'd rallied around him to wrestle back control of the footy, Hasleby's team mates hadn't caught on to the goal kicking caper as quickly as he had. Rockliff got one against the flow of play and Brisbane flirted with fighting back once again.

But this time Fremantle just had too much run and dash. Ballantyne snapped his second (and nearly snapped a collar bone in the celebrations) and Hasleby - who's a very good mark for his size - took a grab and kicked another goal to settle the Dockers and cover for his captain's kicking, who had clearly caught some sort of virus from an Eagle the week before.

Confident that they could over run the Lions in the last quarter. Fremantle decided shut the game down for the final few minutes and take a nice safe 27 point lead into the last break. Very professionally, they set up their zone, covered all entries into attack from Brisbane and made sure nothing would get through.

There was one thing they'd forgotten about though - and quite rightly so. They hadn't bothered to watch Brendan Fevola. Traditionally against the Dockers he has cracked the sulks by half time and you can just let him wander around muttering under his breath and talking to his imaginary dinosaur friend, Scotty. This time, however, he managed to get the ball. Not only that but he got a kick away.  A torrie in fact. The thing sailed clear over Fremantle's zone and almost out of the stadium.

It was a rare highlight for the local supporters but gave them one less thing to complain about when their side went into the three quarter time break 20 points down.

In fact, it was a strange atmosphere for the Dockers to be in. Normally the Lions supporters had had the carnival act going by three quarter time when Fremantle were in town. This time around it was quiet. It was that vibe you get when a large group of people are trying to quietly decide how they will make their early exit - like half time at an Eagles home derby or the beginning of a Tom Hanks film.

When the last quarter got underway and Matthew Pavlich finally found a way to get the footy to go between the big sticks, the sound of whatever cars Queenslanders like to drive wasn't far away - probably something in Japanese.

The class of Fremantle's midfield started to shine through as they waltzed the ball out of the centre and wrenched it out of the stoppages. The death blow wasn't far away but Freo just couldn't get the ball through the goals. They could land a ball on a team mate's chest, laces out sponsors logo to the camera, from 60 metres away, but they couldn't send it over the goal umpires head.

Of course, they were kicking so many points and controlling the ball so well, it was had to see them ruing their inaccuracy at this late stage of the game.

Brisbane kicked five goals in a row. Fremantle were ruing their inaccuracy.

In a few minutes the Lions had fought their way back to within 6 points. The crowd were deafening, the Lions had their spirit back and Michael Voss's face was the same colour as his hair -  and his tracksuit top.

Freo weren't getting over run, they weren't getting beaten to the ball, it was just that when they were in front of goals they were spraying it like Brendan Grylls discussing the new ABC Arts show - Simon Schama's Impressionists - From Cézanne to Seurat

There were some nervous heads back in Fremantle but on the ground they were calm, they were cool, they were professional...until Michael Johnson kicked a goal and they went mental.

It was a much needed goal and it gave Fremantle a much needed buffer as the clock ticke.....bugger, Simon Black kicked another goal.

Fremantle just couldn't shake them. Every time they'd thought they'd pulled away, Brisbane would fight back.

Fremantle were six points down again. The crowd was still deafening. Brisbane were swarming towards their goals and back in Fremantle a lot of bars, cushions, tv remotes and pets were copping the brunt of the pressure but Stephen Hill just stood still as the swarm passed him by and somehow came out the other side holding the football. He ran down the ground, had a bounce, gave it off, got it back  then kicked it to Hayden Ballantyne  in the pocket.

Ballantyne had Pavlich open and he had Morabito open but he'd had enough of them butchering goals so he decided to have a crack himself.

Not his best decision.

He missed the goal but he'd cleverly given Fremantle a seven point lead. When the footy returned, Chris Mayne did what very few others seemed capable of. He grabbed the footy, booted the cover off of it and watched it fly over the goal umpires head to give the Dockers a 13 point lead, draw the curtain and finally put a bullet into Brisbane.