Kylie Sparkled, Freo Copped Another Grand Final Heartbreak

Righto, let’s start with the good stuff because there wasn’t a lot of it for Freo fans by the end. Kylie Minogue turned a freezing, soaked-through MCG into an actual party for twenty minutes, and fair dinkum, credit where it’s due — the woman’s still got it after all these decades on the road.

But then the footy started, and Fremantle copped another one of those grand final days that’ll haunt Dockers supporters for a good while yet. Brisbane sealed their three-peat, hearts got broken in purple, and over here in the west we watched the whole thing unfold from our couches like we always do, a few timezones and a fair few thousand kays away from the actual action.

Kylie Did What Kylie Does

You’ve gotta hand it to the entertainment crew, because from what the broadcast was showing beforehand — blokes squeegeeing water off the stage, punters up in the stands wrapped in ponchos like they were at a wet weekend at Fremantle Oval rather than the biggest game of the year — it looked like it was gonna be an absolute disaster zone. Commentators banging on about the rain, the cold, whether the stage would even hold up.

Then Kylie comes out and just torches all that doubt in about four bars of the first song. Five decades of hits, flying about above the crowd on some rig, sequins catching what little light there was through the drizzle. It’s the kind of performance that reminds you why she’s still the biggest thing this country’s ever exported, bigger than any Brownlow medallist or premiership cup, and I say that as someone who loves his footy more than just about anything.

Say what you like about grand final entertainment over the years — some of it’s been ordinary, some of it’s been downright forgettable — but this was genuinely a moment. The MCG crowd, soaked through and half-frozen, still found it in themselves to go off. That’s a proper superstar doing her job.

Then Reality Bit

Unfortunately for the Dockers faithful, the good vibes didn’t last much past the opening bounce. Brisbane came out and did what they’ve been doing to everyone for what feels like forever now, and Fremantle just couldn’t find the answers when it mattered most. Three-peat sealed, and another September ends in tears for a club that’s had more than its fair share of them.

Look, I’m an Eagles man through and through, always have been, always will be, and there’s no love lost between us and Freo on the footy front. But even I felt for ’em watching that unfold. There’s something particularly cruel about losing a grand final in front of the whole country while the roof practically caves in around you — the rain, the cold, the away-from-home feel of it all for a WA club playing interstate again.

Same Old Story for the WA Clubs

And here’s the bit that gets me every single year, and I’ll bang on about it because someone’s gotta. Two WA clubs, both flying the flag for the west, both making the big dance more often than plenty of teams give us credit for, and every single time it’s the same deal — hop on a plane, fly across three time zones, play the biggest game of your season in someone else’s backyard.

Imagine if the boot was on the other foot for a change. Imagine a grand final at Optus Stadium, the roof shut tight, no soggy stage for Kylie to worry about, and some poor Victorian club having to jump on a red-eye to come play us. Never gonna happen, we all know that, but a bloke can dream.

It’s not sour grapes about the result — Brisbane deserved it on the night, no arguments there. It’s more the bigger picture. The travel, the time difference, the fact that West Aussie clubs are always the away team when it counts most. Fremantle deserve a lot of sympathy today, not just for losing, but for losing in someone else’s conditions, in someone else’s rain, on someone else’s ground.

Give Freo Their Due

Now I’m not about to sit here and pretend the Dockers didn’t have their day coming. Say what you want about the rivalry between us and them — and there’s plenty to say, believe me — but getting to a grand final is no mean feat for any club, let alone one that’s spent large chunks of its history scrapping for relevance. They earned their spot in September the hard way, and copping a loss like that hurts regardless of the colours you wear.

There’ll be Dockers fans reading this thinking the last thing they need is an Eagles bloke offering sympathy, and fair enough too, that’s the rivalry for ya. But footy’s a small world over here in the west, and when one of our own cops a hiding on the big stage, in front of the whole nation, it reflects on all of us a little bit, whether we like it or not.

The Real Winner Wore Sequins

At the end of the day though, the story that’ll get talked about around the barbies this week probably isn’t even the result — it’s Kylie defying the weather gods and turning a miserable MCG evening into something genuinely memorable. That’s not nothing. Grand final entertainment’s copped plenty of stick over the years for being underwhelming, and this was the exact opposite.

Fremantle will regroup, they’ll have their post-mortems, they’ll point to whatever needs pointing to about game plans and personel and what went wrong when it mattered. That’s footy. But for one soggy September evening at least, the real headline act reminded everyone why she’s still box office after all these years — rain, cold and squeegees be damned.

Chin up, Freo. Better luck next time, and maybe next time it’ll even be played somewhere closer to home.