From the Archives, 2006: Freo fury over ‘siren-gate’ draw with Saints

Fremantle led by a point as the final siren sounded, but the umpires failed to hear it. In the following 10 seconds, St Kilda scored a point to tie the match. Four days later, though, the AFL commission awarded the win and the full four points to Fremantle. It was one of only two game results to be changed on protest in the history of the AFL/VFL.

First published in The Age on May 1, 2006

Fremantle share spoils as Saints show their worst

IT BEGAN with a dreadful Jason Gram kick from defence three minutes in, leading to a Matthew Pavlich intercept and a Fremantle goal. Five minutes later Max Hudghton turned the ball over to Jeff Farmer for another goal. St Kilda coach Grant Thomas must have known quickly that this would be a dirty day for his team.

Peter Bell tries to evade tacklers.Credit:Getty Images

Hudghton broke down and was reported, as was Fraser Gehrig, who blew a fuse and gave three consecutive 50-metre penalties in the third quarter. Nick Riewoldt could not get near the football up forward. Aaron Hamill’s chronic injury worries returned, so that he could not take the field.

That the Saints escaped with any points at all is more a reflection of Fremantle‘s chronic inability to close the deal than anything else.

The Saints were woeful, squandering a three-goal breeze in the first quarter to surrender the initiative to the Dockers, and scarcely in the game at all until the last 15 minutes. The furore over the drawn finish may well obscure an inescapable fact: St Kilda, the pre-season favourite, is wallowing.

For 100 of the 120 minutes at Aurora Stadium, the Saints were outplayed. They began with the breeze but Fremantle flooded back and St Kilda‘s use of the football was comically bad. The result was a three-goal deficit that St Kilda was always struggling to overcome.

Pavlich was another problem, for the Saints could not find a match-up for Fremantle‘s best player. He began in the middle at the centre bounces and then drifted forward. Sam Fisher had a crack at him and later Matthew Maguire.

In an error-riddle game Pavlich scarcely made a mistake, feeding off half-chances. He kicked six goals in a virtuoso performance and was clearly best afield.

St Kilda was not without valour. At the centre bounces, the undersized Jason Blake played one of the games of his career, conceding 20 centimetres in height to Aaron Sandilands but actually winning that duel, picking up 25 disposals around the ground; occasionally hoisting himself on to his opponent’s shoulders to get first hands on the football. Thomas would call his performance “herculean” and it was an appropriate description. The Saints handsomely won the centre breaks and at the stoppages around the ground, but this was only part of the deal.

Elsewhere Thomas’s team butchered the football going through the middle, making life impossible for Riewoldt and Gehrig. When the latter tackled Fremantle’s Michael Johnson in the third quarter after the Docker had marked in defence – Gehrig thought that Johnson was playing on – he conceded one 50-metre penalty, then another after he remonstrated with an approaching Docker, and then another, so that Johnson would be gifted a goal. At this point Thomas took Gehrig off and Riewoldt, who had been subdued by Johnson, also sat on the pine for a few minutes.

At this point St Kilda appeared to have no hope. But Stephen Milne chipped in with a couple of goals, Lenny Hayes and Luke Ball began to make an impact and then, on the stroke of three-quarter time, Luke McPharlin inexplicably missed a set shot from just 15 metres out. Fremantle did not know how to win.

Enter Pavlich, whose snapped goal at the start of the final quarter gave his team some breathing space. But then Gehrig came back and kicked a goal and Nick Dal Santo followed up. Further goals to Allan Murray and Leigh Montagna made it a contest again as the dramatic final minutes were played out.

“We were really poor,” Thomas said. “There’s no getting away from that. We were very poor in a lot of areas. We seemed very lethargic. We didn’t have anywhere near the run we expected. We were okay in the contested footy stuff.

“We allowed them far too many easy goals in man-on-man situations. Our use of the footy when we had it was extremely poor. It seems to be a consistent thing when we play here.”

DETAILS

ST KILDA

2.5 6.7 9.9 13.16 (94)

FREMANTLE

5.2 10.5 12.7 14.10 (94)

GOALS

St Kilda: Gehrig 3, Blake 2, Milne 2, Voss 2, Dal Santo, Montagna, Murray, Riewoldt. Fremantle: Pavlich 6, Farmer 3, McPharlin 2, Gilmore, Headland, Johnson.

BEST

St Kilda: Ball, Blake, Dal Santo, Harvey, Voss. Fremantle: J Carr, Grover, Headland, Johnson, Pavlich.

INJURIES: St Kilda: Hamill (back) replaced in selected side by Fiora, Hudghton (hand). Fremantle: Longmuir (soreness) replaced in selected side by Cook, McManus (leg).

REPORTS -St Kilda: M Hudghton reported for spitting at L McPharlin (Fremantle) in the first quarter, L Hayes reported for attempting to strike S Dodd (Fremantle) in the first quarter, F Gehrig reported for striking J Carr (Fremantle) in the first quarter. Fremantle: J Farmer reported for striking R Harvey (St Kilda) in the first quarter.

UMPIRES: Vozzo, Kennedy, Nicholls.

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