If to lose one match in those circumstances is unfortunate, and two looks like carelessness - what on earth do you call three consecutive games all with the same script?

Aside from the problem of keeping us locked with West Coast at the tail end of things, the other dispiritng thing about these recent losses is that the pain of defeat eclipses all of the positive things I see on the field. 

Take today, for instance.  Chris Tarrant played a great game in the forward half, being very creative and taking it on - not that it will win him too many fans in the WA football press, but I enjoyed it.  Brett Peake was back to something approaching his normal self, with slashing run and some fine goaling on the run.  Even Kepler Bradley showed he was a worthy incumbent for the bipolar No. 26 guernsey.

Garrick Ibbotson gets better and better the more regularly he plays in the team.  Rhys Palmer was Rhys Palmer.  Sandi was fine, and I finally noticed Ryan Crowley doing an awesome tag on the dangerous Adam Cooney.  Pavlich was beautiful, again.  Forward pressure was, by and large, excellent.

But it seems that we have developed a very unwelcome reputation for folding like a deck of cards at the first sign of a concerted comeback by the opposition - any opposition, as the Melbourne game proved.  The last ten minutes or so of today's game was depressingly similar to the previous two, and I watched on with a sinking feeling that I knew exactly what would happen once the Bullies got in front.  And it did.

Simply put, this Fremantle team cannot cope.  The young and unpredictable legs that helped us pinch so many close victories in 2003 are tiring, with their replacements not yet seasoned enough to add sustained assistance.  The half back zigzag that propelled all those glorious victories in 2006 seems like what it was - yesterday.  Now, we continually handball into trouble, kick to stationary players unable to move, fumble and panic our way through when the blowtorch is applied, and generally lack the will to fight on.

The old stagers do their thing.  The young stars do theirs.  But what about the class of 2003-2006, the meat that this year seems to be falling out of the sandwich?  Aside from Sandi being dominant and Crowley's tagging, everyone else in that bracket has been massively disappointing in most games.

Brett Peake gets a pass on today's game, although his earlier appearances were bad.  David Mundy's ability to warp the time continuum has vanished - he now looks slow and indecisive, goals be damned.  Michael Johnson looks like a broken man since his nonsensical suspension to start 2007, playing with little passion.  Byron Schammer tries hard, but it seems will always have a congenital problem in picking up the ball cleanly.  Even Steven Dodd - whose dedication to the team he has loved from the start and continual desire to maximise his abilities has endeared him to me for years - looks tired and burnt out in roles slightly unsuited to him.

But by far the biggest target, for me, is Scott Thornton.  Yes, he still provides some dash off the half back line at times, and the loss of Grover has placed more pressure on the defence as a whole.  However, every time I have seen him play in the defensive 50 this year, he has failed utterly in a key position.  It's bad enough during general play where Freo have the upper hand - but fatal when the opposition surges.  I don't often call for specific players to be dropped, but surely the time has come for The Rash to either step up, or stop.

I like the Bulldogs, and it was a fairly entertaining game today.  So I'm not as upset as I was in Rounds 6 and 7.  The season's over, let it go.  I'll still schlep around the country watching Freo because I know that they will be competitive.  But until Mark Harvey stops talking about "sorting them out" and actually does something concrete, this version of the Fremantle Dockers who have teased us with brilliance so often, will never have their core of steel or mind of iron.  And that's the sad thing...