Can you imagine the rancorous reaction from a Port Adelaide fanatic if you inquired whether they intended to cheer for the Crows in the finals?<\/p>\n
Or you casually asked a Rangers fan if they planned to barrack for Celtic in the Scottish Cup this weekend?<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, if I suddenly woke from a coma and started experiencing the effects of foreign accent syndrome and began to \u201cspeak Freo\u201d, I would immediately beg for that part of my brain to be removed.<\/p>\n
For those folk who enjoy a bit of curling, most football rivalries are irrational, complex, multi-layered, and deeply rooted in emotion and psychological factors.<\/p>\n
My illogical, deep-seated disdain for the Dockers stems from growing up opposite a family of South Fremantle supporters, who took immense pleasure in watching their bulldog maul me up every time I tried to retrieve a footy from their backyard.<\/p>\n
Therefore, there is no universe where I\u2019d barrack for Freo, because sport is one of those rare occasions when an unnatural contempt for a rival club is morally justified.<\/p>\n
Loading<\/p>\n
And I\u2019m not alone.<\/p>\n
Long-standing West Coast member Mal Di Giulio eloquently expressed his feelings about whether he\u2019d be backing the Dockers because they are from WA.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t go to Manchester and meet a local that says I support City, but hey, United are my second team,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot support Inter Milan and support AC Milan; you can\u2019t support Arsenal and support Chelsea; and you cannot be a Royals supporter and support the Cardies or whatever their name is now.<\/p>\n
\u201cMoving them to Joondalup isn\u2019t far enough away.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, passionate Eagles supporter Laurie de Mamiel was somewhat more forgiving.<\/p>\n
He would happily cheer for Freo even if it occasionally strained family relations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a soft spot for Freo, because my son started to follow them after he played Auskick in a Dockers jumper,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce I took him to a training session at Fremantle Oval, and when my one-eyed Eagles supporter brother rang me and realised where we were, he hung up.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the Eagles unlikely to make the finals before the end of the decade, one might expect the Fremantle faithful to feel sympathy for the perennial cellar-dwellers.<\/p>\n
But Dockers devotees, like Luke Rees, haven\u2019t forgiven the rival fans from across town for years of belittling banter due to their club\u2019s lack of success.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d see too many Eagles nuffies crawling out of the woodwork touting the always hilarious \u2018which ship has yet to dock at Fremantle?\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter 20-plus years of supporting Freo, I think the chip on my shoulder is tattooed on at this point.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all love an underdog story, but as soon as West Coast look to challenge again, I\u2019m out. Luckily, I think I\u2019ve got a bit of time on my side there.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Like many Dockers followers, Michaela Taliangis\u2019 attitude towards the Eagles is shaped by years of taunting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen asked if I\u2019d support the Eagles in finals if the Dockers weren\u2019t playing, my first thought was\u2014sure, I\u2019d barrack for them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember being one of just three Dockers supporters in pre-primary, constantly hearing jokes like \u2018how many Dockers does it take to change a light bulb?\u2019 or, \u2018which ship never sailed into Fremantle?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cSo truthfully, I\u2019d like to think I could support the Eagles … but not all the way to the big dance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given the Dockers\u2019 recent form, there\u2019s a good chance Freo could go deep into September.<\/p>\n
But if, by some miracle, Fremantle reaches their second grand final, hopefully I won\u2019t be the only Sandgroper hollering for their east-coast opponents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Can you imagine the rancorous reaction from a Port Adelaide fanatic if you inquired whether they intended to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-118980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}