AFL-Fremantle: Wall to Wall (2004)

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General		Extras
Category	Sports	Main Menu Audio & Animation
Rating
Year Of Production	2004
Running Time	86:37 (Case: 80)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Aust. Football Video Visual Entertainment Group	Starring	Peter Bell Ben Allan Paul Medhurst Tony Modra Dale Kickett Gary Dhurrkay Winston Abraham Clive Waterhouse Shaun McManus
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	None Given

    This is yet another in the series of AFL Wall To Wall discs. The Wall to Wall Series offers around 100 minutes of some of the most famous and memorable highlights dedicated to one particular Australian Rules football team. We have already seen titles released for Essendon, St Kilda, West Coast Eagles, and Collingwood. This latest release is for one of the newer teams in the AFL - the Fremantle Dockers.

    The Dockers entered the AFL in 1995, becoming the second team from Western Australia in the national competition. They have not exactly enjoyed a significant amount of success in their nine seasons in the league, collecting the wooden spoon once while making just the one finals appearance in 2003. For much of their time in the league they were considered easy beats, but in recent seasons under the leadership of new coach Chris Connolly the team has started to go places and become quite respected on field, especially when playing at home, where they are very difficult to beat.

    As a result of only nine seasons in the league and hardly what you would call a significant number of outright star players, I was wondering how the makers of this disc were going to fill more than an hour with Dockers highlights. If convention was followed, this disc would not showcase any losses and as such the Dockers don't have that many significant wins under their belts. But aside from a little repeated footage, what we have here is a real taste of what the Dockers are about and a few of the really memorable moments the club has enjoyed in its short history.

    The same format as before is followed, with no real sequence to the highlights shown and no voiceover explaining anything. The categories of Heroes, Sharpshooters, and Headliners are again present, but unlike the other discs in the series there is no category for Hard Men (maybe Freo just hasn't had any tough nuts yet - perhaps that is a reason for their lack of success?). Highlights include significant coverage of the three Derby wins against cross-town rival West Coast Eagles (it now stands at four wins after the victory earlier this season but this disc only covers up to the end of 2003), the club's first ever win in the AFL against Fitzroy in round 2 1995, their win in round one 1997 against Footscray (which I think was their first ever in Melbourne), and a win in round 18 2001 against the Hawks at Docklands Stadium which is famous because it was the team's first win in almost a year.

    Players to receive special segments of their own include Winston Abraham, former captains Ben Allan and Peter Mann, current captain Peter Bell, Shaun McManus, Kingsley Hunter (not sure if I'd consider him for hero status myself) Tony Modra, Dale Kickett, and current superstars (and real stars compared to many of the players that have played for the club) Paul Hasleby and Mattew Pavlich.

    All up this isn't a great disc of highlights, since the club hasn't really enjoyed or been part of some of the most memorable moments in AFL history. For fans of the Dockers it's a great reminder of some of the good moments enjoyed during what has been nine pretty tough years, while for those of us wanting more of a package of significant moments, we may need to wait another 10 or fifteen years.

Video

    Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, the transfer is not 16x9 enhanced.

    Naturally enough, the transfer is of television broadcast quality, all in colour, with the source material dating from 1995. It is really quite remarkable how the quality of television broadcasts has improved in just nine years. The mid 90s source material is of significantly lower resolution and clarity than the modern digital sourced material circa 2002 and beyond. We really do get spoilt these days with superb quality images.

    Grain is present but not annoying and there are no issues with shadow detail at all.

    The colours are well rendered and there are no problems to contend with despite some of the material looking older than just nine years of age.

    No MPEG artefacts are evident and few artefacts of any other sort exist.

    There are no subtitles.

    This is a single layered disc so there is no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only one audio track available, this being an English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack.

    Dialogue is clear and concise at all times and obviously audio sync is not an issue with a sports highlight disc.

    There is no surround or subwoofer use.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Audio & Animation

    This disc is not available in Region 1.

    Fremantle - Wall to Wall is a disc that will certainly appeal to only a very small segment of the market. For Dockers fan that cannot get enough of their team or would like a small memento of the club's first decade in the AFL, then this disc has it all (the good bits anyway - the losses are ignored!).

    The video transfer is well above average for television-based source material.

    The audio is functional without being outstanding.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall