R – In Flash: gotoAndStop and nested MovieClip issues

This is kind of an odd question, I hope this enough information to go on:

In the flash IDE, I have a MovieClip that has 3 frames. In each frame, I have a series of TextFields. It's a poor mans viewstack basically – so here's the issue – in FP10 I can write the following code with no problem:

public function showMenu():void{

     gotoAndStop(2);
     textItem.text = "This worked."

}

where "this" is a MovieClip and textItem is a TextField that is only on the second frame of the movieClip. If I target FP9 and run the same code, I get a 1009 Error about trying to reference a property on an object that is null.

I understand that it is trying to access that property before it was completely instantiated, what I don't understand is why it works in FP10 and not FP9? What could have changed in the flash player to allow this?

UPDATE:

Looks like some weirdness in FP9 – a workaround can be found here:

http://www.scottgmorgan.com/blog/index.php/2008/03/06/accessing-displayobjects-on-the-timeline-after-a-gotoandstop-or-gotoandplay/