1. Purple crush
You’ve heard of The Blob, The Thing and even The Marsh, where the woman gets sucked down by relentless, sludgy quicksand. Well, add to those horror stories Fremantle’s purple crush. Essendon started the match with purpose, more than holding their own in the clinches, although they were still unable to put on any scoreboard pressure except for the opening goal of the match. But they never broke Fremantle. The Dockers just got tougher and raised the pressure, forced the Bombers wide, made them cough it up and then basically disintegrate as the game went on. The crush got Fremantle two goals clear by quarter time, but it was in the second quarter that it sucked the life out of the Bombers when they slammed on five unanswered goals to give Essendon fans their very own horror movie right there on their TVs.

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2. Monster mash
One of the key elements of the purple crush is the monster mash at centre bounces, where Dockers giant Aaron Sandilands uses his 211cm and 119kg to pretty much do what he likes. Usually that is to deliver the ball cleanly into Nat Fyfe’s midriff as he’s dashing goalwards. And he’s the best man you could possibly give it to at the moment. If not the best player in the league, Fyfe is currently in the top three and, given Freo’s 6-0 start to the season, would win the Brownlow Medal in a canter if votes were counted now.

3. The death roll
After the Bombers had the life crushed out of them they then copped the Dockers’ death roll. That comprises Fremantle ensuring the game is played exactly on its terms. The Dockers aren’t too worried about how much they score as long as they keep their opponents in check. The third term death roll started as a bit of a stalemate, but inevitably Fremantle ended up feasting on a few more goals as it extended the 37-point half-time lead to 54 at the last change. The Bombers failed to boot a goal in the third quarter and their three-quarter time score was a measly 3.6 (24).

4. The Pearces have it
There’s no doubt those good folk down Fremantle way love a good Pearce. Alex Pearce made it three unrelated Pearces in Fremantle’s side against Essendon, joining Clancee and Danyle. Alex also became the Dockers’ first debutant for 2015. There haven’t been too many new faces with Fremantle in premiership mode for the past few years, but Alex was the first new face for the season when he took the place of injured full-back Luke McPharlin. There were just two debutants at Freo in 2014 – Max Duffy and Michael Apeness – neither of whom played on Saturday night. Pearce started the match at full-back on young Bomber Joe Daniher and received a big cheer when he had his first kick 23 minutes into the first term.

5. Bombers away
After a fantastic win over Hawthorn in round two and a professional dismissal of Carlton in round three, the wheels have become a bit wobbly for the Bombers. An Anzac Day loss to Collingwood, a two-point escape over St Kilda and now a Dockers demolition job has left them sitting in the bottom eight with a 3-3 record. A loss to North Melbourne next Friday would leave them vulnerable in their hunt to play finals after such a promising start. One bright light for Essendon was their own family connection, with the Merretts, Jackson and Zach, kicking two goals in the opening term. Both Merretts – who unlike the Pearces are brothers – look likely types. Nineteen-year-old Zach is just 180cm but may grow a bit more to match older brother Jackson’s 185cm frame.