Rhonda Bracey: At Random

Wow! What a roller-coaster ride it is being a Fremantle Dockers member!

I went to my first home game today after five weeks away, and it was the Derby with the West Coast Eagles. This is always a good game with friendly (and sometimes not-so-friendly) cross-town rivalry between supporters. It was a Freo home game so the purple passion was out in force, although there were quite a few Eagles supporters in amongst the record crowd of 42,200+.

By the end of a classic game where the lead changed about 70 times (or so it seemed), the Dockers had won… but only just. At one stage there were 10 pts separating the two teams, but mostly there were only 2 or 3 points in it. A heart-stopper, especially the final few minutes when the lead changed 4 times. A goal from Paul Hasleby (Dockers) less than 50 seconds before the siren gave the Dockers a 5 point lead, which the Eagles couldn't match.

A great game – made even more sweeter because this is the first defeat the Eagles have had so far this season. Go the Dockers! (but a pox on those Freo supporters who boo-ed Chris Judd – he played a great game and was quite magical when he had possession of the ball; just because the team wins doesn't mean that the Best on Ground has to be from the winning team.)