Collingwood fluff their lines, while Freo’s win comes from two bursts

April 10, 2026 — 11:44pm

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Adelaide: Gather Round is designed as a showcase of the game – like a music festival without glow sticks.

Friday night was a window on a type of game that at length converts no one, but then excites everyone.

Sometimes games are only good because they are tight. The Collingwood v Fremantle game was tight. For the Dockers that was enough, as having trailed for most of a foul, wet night they were on the right side at the right time and consigned the Magpies to a third loss of their season.

For a game that was crude and inelegant, miserable and miserly, it was engaging in a brutal sense. It was punctuated by moments of freedom from Fremantle that felt all the more exciting for their rarity. It climaxed in an unlikely final few minutes.

In one sense, it was just two short bursts of freedom in which the game was won – both of them from Fremantle. In those periods, barely glimpses, they shrugged off the timorousness of the remainder of the game and boldly attacked. The first when they kicked three goals in seven........

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