It wasn’t their first dance. Nor was it their best. But the contest between superstar Gary Ablett and the competition’s top tagger in Ryan Crowley is always worth watching… and probably ended in a narrow victory to Crowley. In fairness to the Suns captain, the game was played in the sort of conditions that any tagger would relish. And the pro-Fremantle crowd heaped pressure on the umpires every time he looked like he might receive a free kick. Ablett was the equal game leader for clearances and finished with 18 contested possessions – just one behind both David Mundy and Nathan Fyfe. He racked up a total of 24 possessions, but it’s not an effort he’s likely to tweet about.
2. Blame it on the rain
The rain may not seem like a big deal to most football supporters, after all, it’s a game played in winter - it’s supposed to rain occasionally. But when Fremantle took to the field against Gold Coast it was almost certainly the first time they had played or trained in the wet since some time last September. Over the course of the three months of Perth’s summer, the WA capital recorded just 2mm of rain. It was only eight days ago that Perth finally received a decent downpour and that was only a 1mm fall in the middle of the night, so the Fremantle players could have been forgiven for being a little unsure with their ball handling. However, they were surprisingly clean, at times, in a game which had looked like it might develop into nothing more than a series of rugby-like scrums.
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3. The tongue twister can play…
He (and his twin brother) might now have the most unusual surname in the competition, but the only thing unusual about the way in which Tasmanian young gun Kade Kolodjashnij started his AFL career was that he was in the thick of the action in the opening seconds. The attacking defender, who earned his debut with a 40-possession game for the Suns’ reserves side last week, registered the first kick of the game and was prominent during the first quarter, in which he picked up four possessions and a mark. As the game wore on, he continued to fight hard against the more experienced Fremantle midfield and finished with 19 possessions and four tackles.
4. … and Aaron Sandilands is still too big
It’s always tough to beat Aaron Sandilands. At 211cm, he can often win a ruck knock by simply standing his ground and putting an arm up. And that’s exactly what tends to happen when it’s wet and opposition players decide not to risk a running leap into the ruck. As a result, Sandilands dominated at both the boundary throw-ins and the ball-ups, registering 28 hit-outs in the first half – nine of those to advantage. While Tom Nicholls, Charlie Dixon and even Sam Day tried hard, Gold Coast midfielders soon realised they were going to have to read the ball off the hands of Sandilands. To some extent, they achieved that, winning the clearances 49-43. But Sandilands finished with a phenomenal 58 hit-outs, 21 of which went to advantage. It was the equal fifth best rucking effort of all time.
5. Fremantle’s defence is still its strength
Ross Lyon may want his young charges to kick another two goals per game this season but, given the strength of his team’s back six, it’s not likely to matter. Against Gold Coast, Fremantle always looked comfortable playing its way out defence. And, even on the rare occasions in which Gold Coast broke free of the home side’s suffocating midfield press, Fremantle always looked like it had the Suns forwards covered. Gold Coast managed 45 Inside-50s, but kicked just five goals for the match – two of those in the first four minutes of the first quarter.
