The question was not why only 20,320 people turned up to the MCG on Friday night, but why that many did.
This was the first time Collingwood had drawn so few people to a home game at the MCG since World War II when in round 5 of 1940, 20,043 attended. The league's power club could even have lost money at the gate for the first time in decades.
Collingwood with most of their first-choice forwards out and their formerly first-choice forward back in the team as a last resort, it appeared unlikely that against a traditionally scungy Ross Lyon defence they would be able to kick a score. Those assumptions were rendered not just wrong but absolutely misplaced for it was Fremantle who could not score. The Dockers kicked 1.4 for the first half - the second lowest half-time score of Lyon's tenure.