Dockers do enough
ONLY 11,000 people turned up to see two bottom three teams from 2009 (thanks Dean) in action at Subiaco Oval on Sunday night. Those you stayed home didn’t miss much. The problem was that Melbourne were so poor that it’s hard to gauge the meaning of Fremantle’s comfortable win.
It took a while for the Dockers to get into stride but after Des Headland opened the scoring they were never seriously challenged.
There was evidence that Fremantle have worked on a couple of deficiencies.
Last year the Dockers couldn’t score. On Sunday Matthew Pavlich spent a lot of time deep in atack, took some strong marks and kicked three goals. Michael Johnson also kicked three and the most encouraging thing about his effort was that he really wanted to score – that’s an often under-estimated mindset for forwards.
Hayden Ballantyne also looked dangerous while Chris Mayne put himself in the right position regularly without finishing things off. Aaron Sandilands got close to goal and if umpires are fair dinkum will receive a lot of free kicks in that area. He got a couple on Sunday but others were missed.
Sandilands was at the centre of the other area of Fremantle improvement – centre square clearances. David Mundy, who appears to have finally found some intensity, and Paul Duffield were particularly effective.
Of the newcomers Michael Barlow, a hard running midfielder, was the best while Dylan Roberton, who came on in the second half, did some really slick work.
Fremantle’s ball use was generally inconsistent and there was a worrying tendency put team mates into trouble with handball. Disposal continues to be an issue for Fremantle and coach Mark Harvey will need, somewhere along the track, to make a call those who constantly give the ball away.
The signs for Melbourne were not good. New recruit Joel MacDonald, who was almost a Docker, did some nice things and I liked the look of Jack Grimes. Liam Jurrah was given room in the forward line but made little of his opportunities under the careful watch of first Antoni Grover and then Luke McPharlin. It seems much will be expected of Jurrah and that seems rather unfair.
• Fremantle's Matthew Pavlich marks at Subiaco. Photo by Daniel Wilkins. The Slattery Media Group.
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February 25, 2010, 7:41 pm
Dean Schulze
I do hope the first sentence isn't prophetic.
(Thanks Dean, we fixed up our little typo...)