Lachie Neale

Rick Browner reporting for AFANA from Patersons Stadium, Perth

Fremantle picked a win out of the pocket of Carlton at Patersons Stadium in their Round 19 clash. Pre-game defiant Blues' coach Mick Malthouse was adamant that they weren’t in Perth to “just lay down”. Although their 2014 season has been less than impressive, Carlton had won six out of their past nine encounters in Perth so they had some reason to feel confident. The Dockers brought their "A Team" to the encounter after an embarrassing humiliation in their last game against St Kilda and the Dockers needed every man as the match went down to the last 40 seconds to decide the winner.

Rick Browner reporting for AFANA from Patersons Stadium Perth

Sydney limped across to Perth for the Preliminary Final against the Fremantle Dockers, injury ravaged and tired from their Semi Final encounter against Carlton. Fremantle players were fresh after a week off and, playing on their home ground in front of more than 43,000 people, were expected to outlast their opponents and secure a place in the Grand Final.

Rick Browner reporting for AFANA from Patersons Stadium, Perth

Coming off their first win of the season last round, the Greater Western Sydney Giants were brutalized by a rampant Fremantle Dockers team in their Round 20 clash. GWS won the toss and inexplicably kicked into a breeze that was worth at least a couple of goals. Fremantle started with a bang when Nick Suban kicked their first goal within 30 seconds of the bounce down. They were pressuring the exits from the back line with precision and the GIants were finding it hard to hit up targets as they tried to move forward. It was intense football from the home team with an avalanche of goals the result. Michael Walters scored the next goal with his uncanny sense of where the big sticks are, snapping truly off his left foot from 40 meters out. The Giants were rattled and gave up three more goals due to Docker intensity at the ball. Hayden Ballantyne, Chris Mayne and Lachie Neal all registered goals to have six different goal scorers at that stage of the game. Three of those six goals came from turnovers by a struggling GWS. It could have been a lot worse as the Dockers kicked seven behinds to go with those goals. GWS had limited opportunities to score including one shot from Jonathan Giles that hit the post. The luckless Giants had failed to score a goal in the quarter and trailed by a whopping 40 points at the change.