Tarrant-less Dockers look to crash party - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Tarrant-less Dockers look to crash party

By Justin Chadwick 13/08/2008 06:08:57 PM Comments (0)

Fremantle coach Mark Harvey has urged his team to play `party pooper' against St Kilda on Sunday but the Dockers will have to do it without Chris Tarrant who has succumbed to a shoulder injury.

Tarrant will undergo surgery later this week to fix the complaint that has dogged him in the second half of the season.

The 27-year-old has kicked just 23 goals in 16 games this season but got better as the year wore on. He is expected to be sidelined for 12-14 weeks.

Although Fremantle's finals hopes went down the gurgler months ago, Harvey said he was keen for his team to derail the Saints' top eight ambitions.

With three rounds remaining St Kilda are clinging to eighth spot on the table, a game clear of Brisbane and Carlton and six points ahead of Richmond.

"I like to spoil parties, quite often I get dressed up," Harvey said with a smile.

"The fact it's back here over at Subiaco puts a lot of pressure on St Kilda knowing they didn't perform that well two weeks ago (when they lost to West Coast)."

Fremantle's 22-man line-up for the match is shrouded in mystery with doubt surrounding the availability of Antoni Grover, Brett Peake, Josh Carr and Des Headland.

Grover was a late withdrawal from last week's loss to Sydney due to personal reasons and Harvey, who refused to reveal specific details, said he would speak to the defender later this week to determine his availability.

Peake injured his shoulder against the Swans and is rated as a "60-40" chance by Harvey, while Carr is just a "50-50" prospect after suffering a groin injury in the same game.

Headland, who has not played since round four after undergoing knee surgery, will be named in the 25-man squad but Harvey said a final decision on the 27-year-old's availability wouldn't be made until after training on Friday.

"He's still working through getting his quad strength back from a knee operation," Harvey said of Headland.

"That's what can happen - you lose a bit of power - so we'll weigh that up.

"Des is a guy that's got the magic that you look for sometimes and he's got the ability, even at 90 per cent, to hold his own in the team."

The Dockers will be bolstered by the return of Jeff Farmer from suspension while Tarrant's season-ending injury paves the way for forward Ryan Murphy, who kicked nine goals in the WAFL last week, to impress in the final three rounds of the season.

St Kilda will enter the game without Aaron Fiora after the speedster copped a one-match ban from the AFL match review panel for striking Collingwood's John McCarthy.

Fremantle will farewell club great Peter Bell before the bounce of the ball on Sunday and Harvey said he would use the emotion to fire up his troops.

"Internally he'll be in the rooms and we'll pay tribute to him," Harvey said.

"It will be about the way he played. We always put on a three or four minute clip of a player and his journey and how hard it was at times and how he overcame it and how he got to success."

Brought to you by AAP AAP © 2024 AAP

0 Comments about this article

Post a comment about this article

Please sign in to leave a comment.
Becoming a member is free and easy, sign up here.

« All sports news