Blocking out just one sun? What an amateur megalomaniac Bill is! Time to Restump Podcast the retributive purple punishment Freo supplied the Suns.

There has to be a sunscreen sponsorship coming Murphy Reid’s way, doesn’t there? Or at least he should be forwarded some of that lucrative green energy climate change cash for an ambassadorial role? Even when the clouds momentarily parted, not even a single ray got close to him!

Call it atonement, making amends or retribution. It was evident Gold Coast eliminating us from the finals last year was still very much front and centre in the minds, and it was as if closure on that fateful event was required. 

You always hear about players memory banking certain defeats or incidents for future incentive use but you never really think grudges are truly held. However, it's difficult to believe the catastrophic finals loss last year wasn’t an extra motivating factor on Sunday. 

The Freo players were on from the first bounce. They were zoned in, super focused, hitting hard and setting the tone. Sure, we’re all locked in and the eyes are on the bigger prize, but it felt like there was more at stake yesterday, something a little extra to play for. 

36 more disposals, 6 more inside 50s and 24 tackles in just the first quarter alone set a conspicuous tone and put an authoritative stamp the game. It said, “We remember, it hurt and here, have some of these apples!”

Admittedly the Gold Coast Suns must have some internal issues, but to hold them to just 3 goals for the entire match, especially considering how dominant, albeit unclean, they were in clearances in the first half, was a stellar defensive performance by the entire team, but specifically the docker dudes down back.

Up forward the inaccuracy disease flared up a touch again, but it looked a little worse on paper given we had 5 rushed behinds.

But there are two ways to look at it. We can finger wag at Amiss and Treacy’s misses, or we can realise that even when they’re off, others are standing up. The forward line is functioning in such a way that this week we got the reliability of Paddy and Jackson while Freddy got his reward for recent efforts.

And when you have a complimenting and individual supportive forward line, a situation summing up and fast ball moving midfield, attacking half backs and a brick wall of a last line defence… you can win from multiple different positions. Heck, you might even win 14 in a row!

This is all getting extremely real. We’re passing each and every test, teams are looking for the chinks in our armour and coming up empty. Have we progressed onto juggernaut status?

We’re now at a stage where we have built something meaningful, so we have something serious to lose. So, we need to surround the current climate with sensible and measured commentary. If you can find that anywhere, please let us know! Meanwhile feel free to come along for our often unreliable, absurd and irreverent take on it all on the pod. 

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