Dockers' youth win battle against veterans TIM CLARKE, PERTH
April 26, 2010 ANZAC Day has always brought the best out in Fremantle, even during its worst seasons. Last night, playing Richmond, it did not need it.
Even after conceding the first five goals of the game, the Dockers looked the likely victors for the majority of this Subiaco clash, running out winners 15.22 (112) to 11.7 (73) in a game honouring the veterans while also featuring a few.
Adam McPhee's return to Perth has been as miserable as Ben Cousins' exit, but the pair both played their part in a game which was won on the back of Aaron Sandilands' continued dominance, and the Dockers growing belief in themselves and their system.
Matthew Pavlich kicked four, Hayden Ballantyne three and Michael Barlow again showed his early season form was no fluke.
But while Dockers' debutant Nat Fyfe did enough to show he may have a bright future, unfortunately for the Tigers it was their older stagers who proved their most capable.
Richmond's last away day in Sydney ended with one player with an eight-week suspension and a black eye, and three others given a week to ponder whether a hotel foyer is the best place to be at 2am.
One of those of course, was Cousins, a man who specialises in controversy and comebacks - none better than the 38 possessions he willed himself for his first game back for West Coast at this ground in 2007. By contrast this was all a bit-low key - as was Fremantle's start.
The Dockers' refreshing opening to the year has been built on the back of fanatic pressure from front to back, epitomised by livewire Ballantyne. The first quarter showed no tackles to the diminutive frontman - and the statistic reflected a quarter in which the Tigers, finally, showed some claws. Damien Hardwick's men induced more than a minute's silence at Subiaco by kicking the first five goals of the contest.
Three of them came directly from free kicks, which upset the natives, but where earned from the umpires rather than granted.
With Fremantle missing regulation shots at one end, Alex Rance and the recalled Robin Nahas kicked two apiece.
But it was Dustin Martin's soccered effort which was met by genuine celebration.
Their absence from the team seemed to have done little harm to Cousins and co, with Nathan Foley leading his side in possessions at the main break, returning skipper Chris Newman also influential, and Cousins himself having seven disposals.
But with Richmond earning 96 possessions to Fremantle's 61 in the first term, it took just one at the start of the second to light the Fremantle fire.
Ballantyne's crunching tackle - his first for the night - allowed Pavlich to run into the goal square.
With the passion back, three goals to none in the quarter was about right for the balance of play.
But debutant Fyfe's first goal eluded him after the siren - and then the young man got his first taste of a genuine AFL melee, with all 44 players exchanging a full and frank exchange on the way to the rooms.
Ryan Crowley was in the middle of it, and so were the cameras getting the footage for the match review panel.
After Paul Duffield gave the Dockers their first lead of the night, the final vestiges of resistance ebbed away, replaced with petulant acts of a team frustrated by their own limitations.
Eight unanswered goals took the Dockers from 27 points down to 31 points up until Nahas' third. And while the flame flickered for the visitors in the last term, it was no eternal flame, with the 1000th AFL/VFL loss for the club unlikely to be the last this year.
BEST Fremantle: Sandilands, Pavlich, Barlow, Ballantyne, Hill, McPhee.
Richmond: Nahas, Foley, Martin, Rance, Tuck.
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/dockers-youth-win-battle-against-veterans-20100425-tlv0.html
