FREMANTLE 5.1 11.2 18.4 20.6 (126)
ESSENDON 1.3 3.4 4.7 6.11 (47)
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Dockers smash Bombers
Fremantle recorded their first win of the season, defeating Essendon by 79 points on Saturday night.
Goals: Fremantle: C Mayne 3 M Pavlich 3 M Walters 3 H Ballantyne 2 D Mundy D Pearce D Tucker J Griffin L Neale L Weller M Barlow M Taberner T Sheridan. Essendon: J Daniher 2 A Tipungwuti B Goddard O Fantasia W Hams.
Best: Fremantle: D Mundy, L Neale, M Walters, M Barlow, M Pavlich, H Crozier. Essendon: Z Merrett, B Goddard, C Bird, M Leuenberger, A Cooney, D Parish Umpires: Jeff Dalgleish, David Harris, Nicholas Foot.
Official Crowd: 31,199 at Domain Stadium.Â
Fremantle's incredible losing streak was finally ended at 38 weeks with a 79-point win over Essendon at Domain Stadium on Saturday night.
If you hadn't watched the Dockers for the previous 10 weeks of 2016, you'd have been forgiven for thinking they had simply carried on the form that saw them claim the minor premiership last season.
But instead of Fremantle being in the thick of the current battle for a top-four spot, the victory has only moved it from 18th spot on the ladder to 16th. The Dockers are still five wins behind eighth-placed Adelaide, who is yet to play (St Kilda) in round 11.
The Bombers though have been relegated to the bottom of the AFL ladder — for the first time since 2006.
If their performance against the Dockers is what we'll be seeing, with leftover emotion fading and the rigors of an AFL season starting to take its toll on an already depleted list, the second half of the year may get ugly for the Bombers.
The Essendon list was exposed. They played only two of their top-up players, Matt Dea and former Docker Ryan Crowley, who is one of the few players to have played for a WA-base side and returned to Domain Stadium to cheers (even when he limped from the ground with a hamstring injury late in the final term).
Overall, Fremantle had a total of 411 more games of experience and it showed. While Crowley was all right, he could do little to stop his former club handing his new one its second biggest loss of the season, so far. The Dockers also kept the embattled Bombers to their lowest score of 2016.
Despite their own injury concerns in the 20.6 (126) to 6.11 (47) victory, the Dockers still had 14 players remaining from the side that beat the Sydney Swans in the 2015 qualifying final; and 16 from the team that lost to Hawthorn the following week.
It was as good as the Dockers have played in a long time.
While questions have been  asked about the benefit of former captain Matthew Pavlich continuing to play, n his 345th AFL game he showed his value, kicking three goals and setting up several others. He was the dominant player on the ground in the opening term.
The Dockers intensions for the Bombers were obvious early, when they had four goals on the board after just 10 minutes. Lachie Neale (42 possessions) and David Mundy (33) controlled the midfield and scoring opportunities for their forwards resulted.
Even Chris Mayne, who has struggled in front of goals recently, kicked three. Michael Walters was again very good, kicking three also.
But for as good as the Dockers were, the Bombers struggled.
The four premiership points were decided well before half-time, but of the 11 goals the Dockers had on the board at the main break, eight of them were results of Essendon turn-overs.
It didn't get any better.
Zach Merrett piled on 37 touches to lead his teammates to the ball, while Joe Daniher (two goals) and Orazio Fantasia (1.2) looked reasonably dangerous in attack.
But the fight the Bombers have shown in previous weeks was missing.
They were late in getting onto the ground for the first term, only emerging from the rooms with less than five minutes left before the first bounce. The Dockers then had their four goals on the board within 10 minutes, while the Bombers had just 11 touches between them.
That drive usually coming from David Zaharakis was stopped early by Michael Barlow, who kept the Bomber touchless in the first term and to just 11 possessions for the game, while picking up 26 of his own.
And not enough of Zaharakis teammates are capable of picking up the slack when he has a rare tough night.
FREMANTLE v ESSENDON
Votes
9 D Mundy
9 L Neale
8 M Walters
8 M Barlow
7 M Pavlich
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