It was a bold and confrontational statement from Richmond. An exhaustive search, a journey if you will, through the works of history's great thinkers and most passionate philosophers. A mission through time itself to find the answers to mankind's greatest questions. Then, one day, Jack Reiwoldt was hit with an epiphany (and for once he didn't go down grabbing his head). It was so simple - you only live once. His team mates loved the simple elegance of it, so they declared it to the world.
It was a line in the sand moment for Richmond. Their lives would be short and they would make the most of them. In their audacity they weren't just proclaiming their own belief system, they were issuing a challenge to the beliefs of the billions of people who's lives and humanity is built around a concept of reincarnation and even life everlasting. It was a statement of - this is what we believe in and we will commit our bodies, minds and souls to this ultimate truth....and then they abbreviated it to an easy to an acronym that would be easy for teenage girls to stick on the end of their tweets - YOLO.
It wasn't the first time Richmond had been summed up by four letters.
The Dockers had a different outlook though. Fremantle has always been a bit more open minded to the mysteries of the universe...in particular, concepts like forgiveness, redemption and second chances (in fact, that was the club slogan in 2002) but they were still well aware of the importance of testing the Tigers' theory on only living once. A win for the Dockers was a spot in the top 8 and a casual stroll into the the finals. A loss meant, well, losing to Richmond. It was unthinkable.
But while the players were seeing things in terms of fatalistic questions about existence and the lack of it, the Freo players had Ross Lyon there to bring them back down to Earth. After all, the biggest question concerning Ross was how he could keep convincing everyone to let Zac Dawson get a game.
Ross gave it to the players straight - they needed a nice, sensible win with no events of particular consequence that could distract them from the task at hand. That was about the point Griffin put his hand up and said he'd rooted his groin (he may not have used those exact words - also, don't Google that).
By an amazing stroke of luck, Aaron Sandilands was hanging about in the changerooms, with all his gear, ready to come straight into the team - he’d even done the warm up. He stepped in like he hadn't missed a game and, as soon as the runner had given a few midfielders a spray for using the big bloke as shade, they broke free from the cowardly Richmond flood, Michael Walters bolted down the middle of the ground and, as his perfectly weighted pass landed in the arms of Matthew Pavlich, Alex Rance ripped Pav’s head off and the umpire was forced to pay a free kick. Pav kicked the goal and Frematle took the lead.
With the belief that their existence was to be short and it's end inevitable, the Tigers didn't seem all that keen to prolong their lives (or use their time for something more productive than kicking a footy around) . They were throwing themselves about the place, running around like madmen and playing more like they had discovered some sort of Highlander loophole where there could be only several. It was cute.
Their efforts got them a couple of goals and a short lived lead, with Fremantle barely prepared to get out of a trot against a team that consider sleeping pills a way to enhance their performance. And so the Tigers lead was quickly knocked off by tidy goal from Matt DeBoer followed up by a very sensible effort from a young bloke named Stephen Hill.
By the time quarter time came around, Fremantle had a lead of 7 points and all headed into the huddle to enjoy a delicious beverage and play cliche bingo while their coach addressed them. The Tigers were struggling over in the other huddle. They'd thrown their best at Fremantle and came up short. They were dripping sweat, wreaking of failure and terrified of the sunshine as the temperature crept int the high teens. It was lesson in the futility of existence that most of their supporters had learnt years and years and years ago.
To their credit though, Richmond returned to the ground for a second quarter. It was much of the same for them though. Fremantle's clinical professionalism and stunning skills combined in perfect synchronisation as Sweet Matthew Pavlich, David "Curley" Mundy and "Toots" Mzungo produced one of the goosifyingest goals ever captured on film.
Hayden "Too Short" Ballantyne followed it up with a very low key goal from outside fifty, just to keep a lid on things, and Fremantle started to put a massive gap between themselves and their lowly opponents.
Everyone settled in for a comfortable afternoon of smashing Richmond and building percentage. There was some confusion as too how that would work though when Kepler Bradley took a mark in the goal square and set the tone for the goal kicking to come by hitting the post.
Fremantle almost kicked themselves to exhaustion for the next twenty minutes, only occasionally interrupted when the umpires would hand out a string of unusual free kicks to the Tigers, earning them a goal. They managed to get the Tigers back within 9 points of Fremantle before Freo straightened up again with the always sure foot of Michael Walters and often sure foot of Hayden Ballantyne stretching the lead back out to 22 points.
There was some late confusion, when the low sun reflected onto Jack Riewoldt's face forcing Luke McPharlin to look away for fear someone had opened the Ark of the Covenant, and the Tigers snuck through a goal but Fremantle were still happy enough with their 16 point lead.
Far from the humiliation that the crowd had been chasing, Ross Lyon's benevolence had got the better of him and he was keen to keep things low key to at least give Richmond some hope. Lyon also had cunning plan to keep his players hungry, knowing that percentage boost would more than likely mean just one more win could get them into the finals. If he allowed the Tigers to stay in the game, he could keep his players hungry, force them to keep winning and head into the finals as the in form team in the competition.
So he left the players to keep taking wild potshots at the goals then shut the window to the coach's box so he didn't have to listen to the groans of the crowd. It was like a training run for Fremantle as they ran amok in the middle and fired the ball into the forward line, hoping each time that a forward would work out how to kick a goal. Richmond's only answer seemed to be to flood and hope for some sort of down the ground free kick.
Eventually Freo took a mark close enough to goals to make a good thing of it, which meant they had to let the Tigers get a goal in reply.
They kept that sort of pace up, kicking a goal then letting Richmond think they'd earned one of their own. They even sent Pav off a couple of times "limping" to make the Tigers think that they were finally getting some luck go their way. It was more a humanitarian cause than a game of football.
For all Richmond's effort though and despite the margin getting within a couple of goals, there was no concern from the notoriously nervous Freo crowd and no panic from the Fremantle players. Everyone could see that Fremantle were just toying with Richmond. Matt DeBoer kept everything above board with a last minute goal in the third quarter to push the margin back out to 20 points for the last change nevertheless.
Well, everyone could see it but Richmond. They were cockahoop at three quarter time. They actually fancied their chances.
It was adorable.
They had no chance, of course. Hayden Ballantyne and Kepler Bradley both kicked early goals, and got in early fights, to shut the gate on Richmond's hopes. Tough love some would call it.
Most clubs would have realised that Fremantle had been playing condescending football and felt embarrassed. Richmond are a different breed though. They kept trying their little hearts out till the final siren, getting the margin back to 22 points by the end of the day to feel they'd accomplished something.
Meanwhile, Fremantle had moved into the top eight and started to think about playing finals.