The sinking gut-wrenching feeling watching that game was reminiscent of the pre-match banter my mate and me indulged in, circa 2001. "How do you think we'll go," he'd ask. "I think we're going to cop a drubbing, I'd say." At some games he'd say, "We're 40 points up, do you reckon we can lose it from here?" Yep, I'd say. "I'd like to see us put another five on before I relax."

 It's hard to know where to start when every footy board in Perth has already gone there, and is still melting down. I don't know how they cope with the bandwidth. There must be a half a dozen Scotty's in their server rooms shouting, "I canna take anymore Cap'n, she's gonna blow!" Before I implore everyone to jump on the Fabulous Coasters, I have to mention what I've seen around the traps. I don't hang around the traps much, but if there were any week to check out what other sites are saying, this last one would be it. And this weekend is the ultimate Freo freakshow barometer. 

 I saw a fair bit of bagging of this site from a few places. Now, I don't always agree with shane's policies, even if he doesn't know what they are. I can understand some of the criticism, but if what he's doing stops this place from looking like the others I've seen, then so be it. I couldn't spend longer than a few minutes perusing the posts on such sites—particularly when we're going through what we are now. Too many 12 years old, too many adults with brains checked-in and left at pre-primary. Too many people who think the only real way to run a multi million-dollar footy club is for the members to vote for the people to do it, and then be able to tell them how to did it when they're pissed off. If these people want to run a footy club and have a say, there's a local one that will say thanks very much, come along, dig in, wash the kits, run the fete and do the sausage sizzles. I wonder at the sort of people that couldn't write their way out of high school, suddenly think they have all the makings of professional communicators and understand the complexities of national sports administration, and think they can to recognise those qualities in people they've never met, from circles they never move in. There are certain places I won't waste my time, because that's the only type of person that posts there. To call then Spanners is to undo the generations of good work of the fine people down at Sidchrome.

 Fair dink, footy gets people fired up, but it also brings out the freak shows. And we've got the Net to thank for that. People who go off half-cocked, half-baked and full Robert Walls, because they're angry and they don't want to look like a whiny girly-man in front of real people. Not because the team lost, mind. But that it was supposed to win—after almost rolling the premiers, and then bombing against this years wooden spooners. But with these people, it's not the loss that makes them angry. It's that they feel the team has personally gone out of their way to make them feel like a tool when they go back to work/school/remedial class. 

 After looking at some of those boards, such posters don't need any help from our players.

 Like all those people though, after feeling my guts get ripped out by that game, I felt the same as they did, only I'm big and ugly enough not to worry about what other people will say about my choice of footy team. Yes, I'm angry and I'd like to know WTF our club can do about it. I'm angry because I care that a number of players deserve better than their team-mates are dishing up; that some exceptionally well paid professionals look like they're going through the motions when things get difficult. But the last thing I'm going to whinge about is naming how many players should be sacked and how many board members should go with them. This is the sort of mentality that says there's too much crime on the streets, and more people should be locked up. Then they're the first people to complain about the money spent on prisons.

 But we aren't going to hear the club come out and say, "You know what, we've got some issues with players A, B and C and this how we're dealing with it. We also have some real problems with P and Q and they're in the shit right now, I can tell you. Players X, Y and Z are going out the door this year if thing don't change as of next game." Some people really do expect a footy club to come out with this sort of stuff to make them feel better. Show me one club in the last 20 years that's done this? AFL footy is a corporate world, and just like that article Don Watson cut n pasted for that journalist a couple of weeks back, footy clubs speak a language that protects the brand image and enhances the commitment to continuing improvement and endeavouring towards excellence and world's best practice, going forwards. I hate it, you hate it, but it's the language of sport.  

Life, people, is not a game of black and white, and 'hard' decisions having to be made. Those are clichés for politicians and Robert Walls. If the AFL coaches' association had worked out how to create a team that consistently slays all in its path, or struggles, yet can improve exponentially (or even linearly) with every season, and regularly unearth gun recruits at pick 79, it would have been bottled, and Demetriou would be running a parallel draft system for access to it. Carlton would drop Judd for the rest of the season to tank for it.

 We have a good list of developing kids. We've got a few great players. What we don't have is a great team. You can fill a team with great players; this doesn't mean you'll get a great team. T.E.A.M. is the thing here—Together Everyone Ate MonteCarlo's. It's corporate cliché banged out at sales conferences, but it's a language, god help 'em, your average footballer understands. If I need to convince anyone of that, today is the only example I need. And last week. Melbourne are completely crap. They are also demoralised and lacking any confidence. We helped give them some. They worked as a team and were rewarded. Just like Freo did last week, and almost were.

 How we cough up a 50-point lead to a team that everyone expects to take 4 points off this season is another thing. This is what Harvey has to deal with.

 I think he has to consider if some players have been blooded too early; if he's made too many changes, too soon; and, yes, if some players have to be asked whether they want to play for this club, or be shown the door. This would be the time to do it. This is when questions are being asked of this group, and as a group, some are telling him all he needs to know.

 Which brings me to the blog.

 I don't have the answers because I don't know how to run a footy club. I do know whatever ails our list is the same problem we had when Connolly was there, so I'm not dumb enough to blame Harvey or the board.

 So, when everyone has stopped being angry, hurt and humiliated by de facto, the task at hand is what to do about it?

 I don't know. I'll bet you don't either. Some will have had enough and not renew their memberships. That's fine and their choice, I can sympathise with that. But what next? Do they go and support WC or another team, to try to grab a quick bit of self-gratification and jump on a sure winner? (Which pretty much excludes the WC option). Lose interest in footy altogether?

The talk on talkback today has been the enigma of how Fremantle has managed to grow as a club, despite sporadic descent into 2001 playing mode the last couple of years. It's simple. The very things that make WC attractive to some supporters are exactly what repel others. WC, when they could play, played the most boring football in the competition. They played a game based on letting the other side score less, and thereby scoring more by default. Sumich was so average his own fans bagged him. Watching them was like sitting through an entire Worsfold media conference. There's a lot of activity, but very little is actually worth watching. Pretty much like it is now, except they're not winning doing it. Some of us have just come too far to let go. And this is a footy town. Watch the Force struggle for members if they can't actually become one in a couple of years.

 So, go ahead and join boxheadgreg in the phone booth reserved for finally-had-it Freo-supporters. I honestly don't blame you, because it's only football.

 It's football, people. We currently suck like an overheated nuclear powered Dyson. But it's still just football. It's not your job, life, wife or kids. It's not even that half empty box of Coopers Red in the garage (ahh, sweet liquor eases the pain). The rest of us will get on and support, even though they're breaking our hearts all over again. It may hurt, it may be masochistic, but don't trot out the Robert Walls media line of sticking it out to 'reward mediocrity'. I won't be. At the footy I'm reminded that, yeah, it's only footy, but I still care, bugger it, and every win or loss reminds me I'm still here and breathing.