They call this time of the year finals, as in finally the losers and chump brigade have buggered off and the decent teams can get down to playing serious football. Fremantle is one of those final teams and they'll be joining another, Sydney, in what is confusingly called a qualifying final. Fremantle's defence hit a bit of a snag this week with news that Zac Dawson is in the running for goal of the year and has subsequently gone and dyed his hair blonde and bought himself some boots that light up when he puts them into his opponents back. So troubling was that news that it made the announcement that Michael Johnson was out for the rest of the finals somewhat less shocking. As you’d expect then, Fremantle have fallen back on Plan B, who prefers to be called by the name Alex Silvagni. Another handy inclusion is a young man by the name of Nathan Fyfe who has recently spent some time on the sidelines because he’s a bloodthirsty maniac who likes to punch first and ask questions later. Ross Lyon has also decided to take a leaf out of Leigh Matthews’ book and bring in a finals specialist ruckman, with Job Griffin popping onto the bench. The substitute specialist team of Hayden Crozier and Nik Suban have been given a week off to prepare for the more important games later in September.
To save people forking over their hard earned money to the AFL in exchange for a magazine that gets bigger every week, making it harder to get to the only part you actually want - the names of the players, we've introduced the Dockerland Budget.
Ross Lyon has his sights set on the flag this year but he's the sort of bloke who loves to get feedback from the general public, good or bad. So if you really want to be a true supporter of the club, then make sure you shout stuff out to him at the ground and give him some pointers on how to get this coaching caper done. But before you do your duty as a member and hurl advice in the direction of professional coaching staff, make sure you know what you're talking about or they might just right you off as a nutjob and miss out on some choice advice. Work the board, move the magnets around and when you think you've got it sussed, start practising yelling "Hey Ross! Ross! Put Sandilands in the goal square for a rest!"
Nick Smith |
Ted Richards |
Dane Rampe |
Zac Clarke |
Matthew Pavlich |
Michael Walters |
Nick Malceski |
Heath Grundy |
Rhyce Shaw |
Hayden Ballantyne |
Chris Mayne |
Matt Taberner |
Dan Hannebery |
Josh Kennedy |
Gary Rohan |
Stephen Hill |
Ryan Crowley |
Cameron Sutcliffe |
Lewis Jetta |
Lance Franklin |
Jarrad McVeigh |
Tendai Mzungu |
Alex Silvagni |
Danyle Pearce |
Adam Goodes |
Kurt Tippett |
Harry Cunningham |
Paul Duffield |
Zac Dawson |
Lee Spurr |
Mike Pyke |
Aaron Sandilands |
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Kieren Jack |
David Mundy |
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Luke Parker |
Nat Fyfe |
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Craig Bird |
Jake Lloyd |
Jonathon Griffin |
Ben McGlynn |
Sam Reid |
Garrick Ibbotson |
Jeremy Laidler |
Tom Mitchell |
Michael Barlow |
Dean Towers |
Matt de Boer |
Lachie Neale |
Alex Pearce |
Hayden Crozier |
Numbers...you can't trust them. The Romans knew what numbers were up to and wouldn't have a bar of them. You can put your faith in a nice sturdy X but a 10, it's shifty. The only thing more iffy than a number is a statistic, they'll cut you open and rob you of your kidneys before you can say "aren't you supposed to drug me and put in a bath of ice first?". Unfortunately we're hooked on numbers though, we need them to work out how many kicks David Mundy had this week...and probably some other stuff too. The Dockerland Labs spent the summer pondering the problem and eventually, when the cricket was over, the fridge was empty and the clicker broke in everyone's pen, they came up with a solution - the stats cloud. A quick glance and you'll pretty much know everything about a game of football that there was to know, at least all the boring bits about it. The bigger the player's name, the more kicks, or marks, or tackles he had compared to his teammates.Â