Sometimes the best that can be said of a game is that it was tight. The Collingwood v Fremantle game was tight.
Josh Treacy took a stunning late mark in the most clutch of moments.AFL Photos
For the Dockers, that is enough, for they were on the right side and consigned the Magpies to a third loss of the season.
For a game that was crude and inelegant, miserable and miserly – but engaging in a brutal and tough sense and only punctuated by moments of freedom – this became a thrilling contest.
It was two short bursts, both of them from Fremantle and both of them from periods where they shrugged off the timorousness of the remainder of the game and boldly attacked, that this was won.
They were the two stages – the first when they kicked three goals in seven minutes in the second quarter, and the second when they kicked two in a minute in the last – that won them the game.
The other moments that clinched them the four points were the long stages where Collingwood owned territory, and edged ahead in scoreboard ascendancy, but nowhere near as far as they should have for their ownership of the play.
They were the moments when Collingwood hit the post, sprayed it out on the full and finished with a score line of 5.9. One of those shots – and yes, this is unfair to single out Nick Daicos, given he was probably the best player on the ground, but he ran inside 40 in the last quarter and pushed the kick wide. That he did it, too, made it notable. That Lachie Schultz missed his chances became a pattern.
At length, Fremantle played a strange game of feeding the loose man left behind the ball by Collingwood, while all Fremantle forwards sucked up the ground. The Dockers were slow and stagnant with the ball. These were the periods where Collingwood should have put them away and didn’t.
Jamie Elliott had the moment to mark on the lead midway through the last and dropped the ball. It went forward for Jye Amiss, to mark in almost the mirror image spot and convert his chance. A minute later and Billy Frampton centred the ball in torrential rain and there was a turnover. Matthew Johnson swooped on a loose ball and gave the Dockers back a lead they had not held since the second quarter.
Jordan De Goey and Sean Darcy were both subbed out of the game before half-time with concussion.