I was reminded of this game today when I looked at the way each of the teams generated their scores. Carlton dominated from the stoppages, and scored most of its goals from stoppages - big efforts from Judd, Bentick, and the ability for Hammo and Kreuzer to compete against Sandilands. Fremantle scored most of its goals from rebounds and upfield free kicks - in fact, I can only remember one or two goals generated from a hard ball get. And, it's not as if we were punished from turnovers in our backlines - most of the turnovers which led to goals occurred through ill-directed kicks into the forward line. And kick-ins, of course; Fremantle went coast-to-coast on at least three occasions and completely smashed us from kick-ins. This is a growing problem; we need to be able to generate more forward-line stoppages, or we need to hold some of our midfielders back when the ball is in the forwardline to defend the potential rebound - and we definitely need to learn how to defend kick-ins, because we're getting smashed in that aspect of the game repeatedly. Another key point is that the nature of rebound goals, as compared with stoppage goals, is that the quality of shot is usually much higher - it was not just good fortune for the Dockers that they had 13.1.79 at three quarter time, it was a product of them being able to get deep, one-on-one contests to give them easy shots at goal.

The backline did an excellent job, especially considering the outs. It is unreasonable to expect defenders to stop Pavlich or Tarrant when the kicks coming in are unpressured. I thought Carlos and Bower performed admirably.

And I laud Ratten for realising that the move of Pavlich into the centre of the ground was going to cost us the game, and shifting Carlos back onto him. Not only was Pavlich winning the clearances, but he was drifting forward unopposed to take marks - which we were lucky that he missed the shots from. But with Carlos in the middle, he was able to stay with him when he drifted forward, and was able to win clearances himself.

And, if you would rather play badly and win than play well and lose, then you have completely the wrong attitude to apply to a developing team. But to say that we played badly is simplistic.

Freo are a good side that have lost to several top sides and will be looking to re-establish some belief in themselves here in Melbourne.

I predict a 32 point loss.

I believe that we showed against Adelaide that we're capable of beating any team if we apply midfield pressure. The major variable factor is turnovers - if we limit our turnovers, we can place ourselves in an excellent position.