Glen Quartermain: Fremantle Dockers earn points decision in battle of forward heavyweights Darcy and Treacy

This was a battle of two forward-line heavweights. In the white corner, the Western Bulldogs had Sam Darcy, a 208cm freak show, an uber footballer with arms like goal posts. In the purple corner, there was Josh Treacy, Fremantle’s forward-50 running machine who hits packs with purpose and kicks goals for fun. Dockers defenders Alex Pearce and Josh Draper discovered, like other AFL backmen have this season, there are three options to mitigate Darcy’s dominance. One. Take him on in the aerial contest. Darcy marks at the highest point in which case it is near impossible to get a fist on the ball. Two. Go the arms and risk drawing a free kick. Or three. Go body on body. Pearce and Draper were able to employ option three with some success, but by the final siren, Darcy had kicked five and was the highest rated player on the ground. Darcy can swing on to his non-preferred side with ease too and can morph into a player 20cm shorter, as he did with his fifth goal when he crumbed from a stoppage and snapped truly through heavy traffic. And with just over two minutes remaining, he became tall again, creating the contest that spilled the ball to Lachlan McNeil that put the Dogs within 10 points. Treacy is a different beast altogether. He could have had five as well, but 3.2 was still an impressive return as he worked tirelessly to shake off Rory Lobb and Buku Khamis. Treacy’s forward craft has developed to an elite level and he can swing with the best of them, going behind the ball late when the side required a shake up with ruckman Luke Jackson out of the game through injury. Treacy had great support in the front half from Michael Frederick, who kicked three goals, and Shai Bolton (two) in his best game for the Dockers. Bolton could have iced the game but chose the unselfish option, though his chip to Frederick fell short. The first quarter was frenetic, played the way the game would be in heaven. Goal for goal and at a pace Gout Gout would be proud of, yet the Dockers hung in there despite the ball camped in the Bulldogs’ forward 50. They led by two points at the first change despite losing the inside-50 battle 19-8 on the back of a 6-3 centre clearances win by the Dogs, who also had 46 more more disposals. It was rinse and repeat at the start of the next before the Dockers broke the game open in the second half when they broke even at stoppage through 150-gamer Andrew Brayshaw and Serong and kicked six unanswered goals. Going against a recent trend the team got incredible bang for buck with 7.3 for the quarter, scoring from 63 per cent of their entries. The 11.5 half-time score was the equal highest for a half under Justin Longmuir’s reign. Just as the game looked to be getting away from the Dogs, they incrementally edged their way back to nagging distance: 24 points at three quarter time and when Darcy bagged his fifth it was 16. Freo fans had their hearts in mouths as the final moments played out, as close finishes have not gone their way in recent times. But it was sealed in the dying minutes by Murphy Reid, rewarded by some forward line hussle when he beat two Bulldogs over the boundary line and was rewarded seconds later with an opportunity close to the goal face, slid one through and celebrated with gusto.