That's what I am sure Chris Connolly, the one man comedy act who occasionally moonlights as the coach of the Fremantle Dockers was saying at the conclusion of yesterdays Richmond V Fremantle match.

Following Freo's narrow loss to their cross town rivals West Coast Connolly decided to try and steal a march on Terry Wallace by making an issue of some disparaging comments about the Dockers made by Wallace when he was employed as a media commentator. What exactly this was meant to accomplish I'm not really sure, as the coach doesn't take the field and Terry Wallace was at the time employed to call things as he saw them, judging by the Dockers performances during the 2004 season most less than complimentary comments were well deserved, it would also do well for Connolly to bear in mind that in his two years in the media Terry Wallace also commented on Richmond and very few of those observations were supportive. I fail to see how comments made as a media employee would have any bearing on how Wallace or Richmond would have approached this game.

For his part Wallace made no comment, other than Fremantle was an opponent that Richmond had to play and beat. He did talk up making the MCG (Richmond's home ground) an unpleasant place for the Dockers, but that was directed at the supporters, not either team. Nathan Brown (Richmond acting captain) added a little fuel to the fire by saying that the loss to Fremantle in 2004 at the MCG was when Richmond bottomed out, this indicated that the feeling at Richmond was that Fremantle were an inferior opponent at the MCG.

The loss of Graham Polak, Matthew Carr and Des Headland before the game did not help Fremantle in it's quest to win a valuable away game, however Richmond were without skipper Kane Johnson and the exciting young defender Brent Hartigan.

The game began evenly with both sides scoring early and Docker key position player and future superstar Matthew Pavlich well on top of the underdone Ray Hall. Then the Richmond big man division of: Trent Knobel, Troy Simmonds, playing against his former team, Greg Stafford and Matthew Richardson stood up, held their marks and brought their determined, hard running midfield into the ground. The Dockers cracked under the pressure, Richmond took a handy lead into the second quarter.

The Dockers fought back hard early, cutting the margin to 10 points, but again Richmond skipped away and capitalised on Fremantle's mistakes. Although the Tigers had a 20 point lead going into the long break this game was still up for grabs.

Someone needed to take control of this game. Enter Matthew Richardson. The big man was awesome, aided and abetted by his partner in crime Nathan Brown, Richo ripped the heart out the Dockers with four of Richmond's six goals for the term. Rex Hunt's 'Fat Lady' had sung midway through the quarter and the Tigers were home as Docker heads dropped around the ground.

Although Fremantle outscored Richmond in the last quarter, Richmond went inside their attacking 50 more often and only innacuracy prevented the scoreline from being truly embarassing for the visitors.

I'm betting Connolly will keep his mouth shut about his opponents for the next few weeks at least.

Player ratings:

2. Darren Gaspar: approaching 200 career games the key defender is almost back to All Australian form. The glue that holds the backline together.

3. Brett Deledio: continues to impress, blistering pace and poise that is rarely seen in a veteran, let alone a first year player with 4 games to his name.

4. Andrew Raines: quick and clever, spends a lot of time on the bench, but learning all the time.

5. Troy Simmonds: the criticism in the media must have stung him into action. His best game for the Tigers so far, the big goal on the quarter time siren the highlight.

6. Mark Chaffey: the much maligned small defender covered himself in glory by shutting down Dockers prize recruit Premiership player Josh Carr.

7. Nathan Brown: his second best on ground performance in two weeks, was everywhere all day and is the real Rolls Royce of the Tigers.

9. Wayne Campbell: still slows play down too much for my liking, but rarely wastes a possession.

10. Greg Stafford: in tandem with Knobel and Simmonds he makes a good target in the forward line and will cause headaches for defences all season.

11. Joel Bowden: picks up plenty of the ball by sweeping across half back and keeps driving it into attack.

12. Matthew Richardson: simply awesome. Power and strength personified.

13. Trent Knobel: his best game for Richmond, has steadily improved throughout the season and his best is still ahead of him.

15. Kayne Pettifer: useful on the half forward line, kicked one very nice goal and was instrumental in others.

20. Ray Hall: after initially being led to the ball by Matthew Pavlich, shut down the dangerous Docker to the extent that Pavlich hardly touched it after the opening few minutes.

21. Shane Tuck: worked brilliantly in conjunction with Chris Hyde, the nucleus of an emerging midfield.

23. Daniel Jackson: always prepared to have a go and get the ball forward, whether in defence, midfield or attack.

24: Mark Coughlan: anyone who read my review of Cogs during his stellar 2003 season knows that I am a fan. After slaughtering Paul Hasleby and picking up possessions at will I have only two words: he's back!

27. Andrew Krakouer: always dangerous around goals, but worked hard in other parts of the ground and played all four quarters.

31. Chris Hyde: really impressing after a good season last year and going on with it.

32. Greg Tivendale: moved smoothly, ran the lines and delivered the ball into the forward line with authority.

34. Mark Graham: not always pretty, but refused to concede anything to his opponent, much improved display.

35. Chris Newman: also getting back to his best after a disappointing 2004, continually rebounded the ball from the back half.

39. Andrew Kellaway: I wrote this guy off after round 1. My mistake, yes he's slow and not the best kick, but he can always be relied upon to take the saving mark on the last line of defence and his sheer courage inspires his team mates.