Thirty five thousand odd people gathered around Subiaco, not to see the sublime skills of Stephen Hill, nor the menacing size of Aaron Sandilands, nor the devastating boot of David Mundy, nor the awesome awesomeness of Matthew Pavlich, but to witness a public execution. It wasn't a crowd baying for blood or for justice, that's called a Western Derby, they paid their money, they took their seats and all they asked was to see the 22 players flogged for two hours or until they keeled over and died - for no reason other than to watch them die.

Fremantle were happy to do their part, frankly it would be a relaxing change from having to dazzle and delight the fans with party tricks and forward line hi-jinx.  The Kangaroos were playing their cards close to their chest on whether or not they'd be willing participants and let Fremantle make it a clean cut or whether they'd wriggle about a bit and make things an effort for everyone.

The siren cleared things up though. David Mundy got the ball, put it on his boot and sent it over to Kepler Bradley's chest. Bradley dobbed the goal from 65 metres out and the scoreboard attendant was caught out, still putting up the names of the teams when his services were needed for Freo's fist goal.

It was a satisfying start for the crowd but it increased expectations. A goal every thirty seconds - two goals a minute, multiplied by 30, multiplied by 4...the only thing bigger than Fremantle's score was going to be the number of eyes taken out by feverish flag waving.

But when thirty seconds went by without a goal, there was some disgruntled supporters. When a minute went by they just sat their stunned. It was quiet. Too quiet for a Fremantle game. Then Jay van Berlo sent a long bomb flying over the flooding Kangaroos, through the goals and into the car park and the crowd erupted. The flogging was back on.

A huge bomb from Anthony Morabito out of the centre fell into the goal square. Seven North Melbourne players were left scratching their heads as Kepler Bradley somehow got hold of the ball, weaved his body around all of them and drilled his second goal. He was on target for double figures.

North Melbourne weren't even laying a finger on the football as a half strength Dockers midfield played keepies off with them. It was headed for a club destroying shellacking and most thirsty supporters hadn't even gotten on to their second beer yet. So it was obvious what would come next.

A highly suspicious string of free kicks gave the Kangaroos their first real taste of the football and they free kicked their way down the ground to where Lindsay Thomas was able to score what you would politely call a much needed goal.

With the easily pleased Roos supporters easily pleased, the umpires put their whistles away and let Fremantle get on with the public flogging. Another barely contested centre clearance from Mundy had the ball down in the Kepler Bradley Zone but benevolence of Kepler knows no bounds and, when he got the ball he passed it off, rather than just dob the goal from 80 metres out. The ball went high,  Ballantyne somehow came down with it, gave off the ball and some lip, and Suban kicked Freo's fourth.

The Freo forwards decided to take a bit of a breather and gave the defenders a chance to do their bit at humiliating North Melbourne, with Chris Tarrant covering for both McPharlin, by taking a series of screamers, and Michael Johnson, by dashing through packs and kicking the ball freakishly low to the ground; but eventually it came time to get the scoreboard moving again so Morabito sent the ball down the guts again where Hayden Ballantyne swooped on it, side stepped Brady Rawlings and dobbed another goal.

It was getting ugly for the Roos. They were a mess, a car wreck. It was almost too hard to watch as they were slowly torn limb from limb.  You just wanted it to end, even if for just a few moments so they could regroup and collect up their dignity ... well maybe one more goal and then let them regroup.

Sandilands thumped it over to Pavlich, Pavlich went to Suban, Suban went to Ibbotson and Ibbotson's goal started the Mexicans waving. There were taco shells and sombreros everywhere. It really was a mess now.

By the time the ball got back in the centre, Sandilands had decided he wasn't even going to bother with Mundy any more. He just grabbed it and booted it. What he hadn't counted on was that Roger Hayden would get the unluckiest bounce since ACME unloaded some army surplus trampolines on the coyote. The ball clean bowled Hayden, Swallow picked it up, gave it off and Harvey kicked North Melbourne's second goal.

When the siren sounded it was sweet relief for the Roos and a much needed break for the Fremantle supporters who weren't as match fit as they needed to be, to cope with the levels of high fiving, cheering, dancing and general tom foolery.

With a 28 point lead on the board, even the normally subdued Fremantle players were pretty pleased with themselves as they headed in for a drink and a recap of just of good their arse kickery was. Even if they packed it in now they looked likely to roll the Kangaroos and lock in second spot on the ladder.

But feeling comfortable is the first step to failure in the AFL and Fremantle were very quickly put back in their place by North Melbourne. Lindsay Thomas kicked two early goals to close the gap to 17 points. Suddenly Fremantle were regretting the decision to return to the ground in gold chains, sunglasses and fur coats.

They shed their Hollywood images and went back to their hard running, long kicking, scant regard for humanity brand of football.

When everyone had settled, refocused and reacquainted themselves with the joys of dishing out pain, they got the ball to Matthew Pavlich and stood back and watched as he muscled past Kangaroo after Kangaroo, belting them with their own shinbones in a display of both strength and irony. When he found some space, he straightened up and jailed the goal to a delighted, and slightly relieved, crowd.

A few unlucky efforts from the Purple Baron kept the crowd guessing before Kepler Bradley straightened his side up once again to take them into the long break, a point better off than at quarter time.

As the players headed down into the rooms, Mark Harvey decided to save his voice. The message about sticking the to the process seemed to have gotten through when the Roos got within a sniff but over in the blue and white rooms it was a different story.

Brad Scott was excited. He was fired up. He called his players together, pointed to the scoreboard to show them where they'd kept Freo to just two goals and told them to dig deep and show some of the Shinboner Spirit.

Apparently the Shinboner Spirit is an 80 proof gin.

They literally came out swinging. Having seemingly given up on the game, they decided to do what they do best - pick fights and then cry about it. They scragged, they punched, the pulled hair and they piled on top of a defenseless Chris Tarrant. Once again the umpires had no idea how to handle the situation so they resorted to their fall back position - pay a free kick against Fremantle. O'Keefe score a goal from the free and all of a sudden North Melbourne started to think they were a chance.

What they didn't realise is that they'd just made a huge mistake.

You don't make Fremantle mad. You won't like them when their mad.

The Fremantle Dockers suddenly transformed into the Purple Hulks (except for Aaron Sandilands who transforms back into Bill Bixby after a match). It was just a see of huge angry blokes in purple tattered pants with a score to settle.

Chris Mayne kicked a goal to repay them for the treatment they'd dished out to Tarrant.

Kepler Bradley put through another one for Pratt dobbing on Jeff Farmer.

Morabito killed a man to provide a shepherd for Hill; who kicked a goal for the four weeks Michael Johnson's arse was given for high contact.

Fyfe kicked one for that freak goal bloody Daniel Wells kicked to keep Fremantle out of the finals.

Ballantyne kicked one for that other freak goal Wells kicked to keep Fremantle out of the finals.

Hasleby put one through for when they delisted his good mate Leigh Brown.

Mayne put another one through for all the times Shane Parker had been left one out with Wayne Carey in the forward line.  Pagan's paddock his arse.

Fyfe went again for the time David King thought it would be funny to KO a barely shaving Steven Koops.

And when they were done settling scores, and the North Melbourne players were on their knees, weeping like a Rockingham religious artifact, Pav put through a couple of goals, just in case anyone had forgotten that he's much, much better than them.

It was the flogging the people had paid their money for. 10 brutal goals that had made a mockery of the word contest. A football display worthy of the often talked about archives. Footage to put in a capsule and send into space so far off life forms can both fear the wrath of and sit in awe of man kind.

And as the North Melbourne players trudged towards their huddle, it was a space capsule they would have liked to hitch a ride on. They were 70 points down and there was still a quarter to play.

It was lucky for the Kangaroos, however, that while Fremantle lacked pity, they had other teams to humiliate and their focus shifted to keeping their players on the paddock until the last Saturday in September.

So Fremantle cruised through the final term, kicking a couple, letting the Roos kick a couple and making sure everyone walked off the ground fit, healthy and not too dizzy from the Mexicans and their waving.