Crowning glory for the Cats and the MCG

Midway through the third quarter, Geelong’s bench players began to bump fists and swap high-fives.

Arrogant? Presumptuous? Not really. At that very moment, Tyson Stengle was bending the ball like an unfurling streamer from the boundary line for his fourth goal and Geelong’s 14th, approximately.

The grand final was all over bar some very loud shouting from the capacity crowd of 100,000. To the credit of the sizeable contingent of Sydney fans, most stayed to the bitter end, adding their dutiful applause to the acclaim of the all-conquering Cats.

Joel Selwood takes to the stands with the premiership cup.Credit:Scott Barbour

Like their team on the day, they had nowhere to go and nothing to do except watch and admire. Geelong coach Chris Scott acknowledged them; the Cats would not be remiss in anything they did this day.

Inescapably, it was an anti-climax of a grand final. It was antithetical to the course of this thrill-a-minute season, too, although you could say it fitted in one particular way: no one saw it coming.

Perhaps we should have. Geelong finished the home-and-away season two games clear, and the grand final two light years clear. They haven’t lost a game since May.

In the frenzy of close finishes and wildly fluctuating fortunes for other clubs, this was too easily overlooked. The winning streak compounded into a cakewalk. After a tight squeeze against Collingwood in a qualifying final, the Cats won their last two matches by a total of 152 points.

But it doesn’t stop there. As Sydney co-captain Dane Rampe said by way of a podium tribute: “you guys have been the benchmark for God knows how long”.

It’s true. Premiership coach Chris Scott and captain Joel Selwood lived both in the moment and beyond it. Scott thanked a bevy of former coaches, whom he said had paved the way. Selwood echoed him. “To the club, and everyone in it, not just this year, but the years that have gone by,” he said. “I hope you’re sitting back proud.”

Selwood began the day by carrying former premiership teammate Gary Ablett’s son Levi through the banner. He ended it by giving his boots to the Auskick kid who presented him with his medallion, ducking to receive the honour. This time no one complained.

These were touches of class and thoughtfulness to match his many classy touches on the field. No club in VFL/AFL history can have had a more inspiring leader than Selwood. None has better embodied his club’s animus. This becomes his era.

Again, Rampe spoke for all. “Sometimes, you’ve got to pinch yourself when you share the field with giants of the game,” he said. “And you’re an absolute giant.”

In the Selwood era, no team has won more games than the Cats. No player, no captain, has won more games. No coach in history who has held the reins for more than a handful of games has a better winning percentage than Scott.

The Cats have campaigned as honestly as any club, repeatedly thrusting themselves into the top four, eschewing the idea of bottoming out. As per their theme song, they’ve played the (long) game the way it should be played.

But for all their enduring excellence, they had not won the premiership since 2011, Scott’s first year as coach and Selwood’s first as vice-captain. Much as they reassured themselves that their perseverance in doing all the right things, always, was its own reward, they needed the validation of silverware. It’s the way footy works. It’s the way sport works.

Everyone has a plan, but no one has a script. Geelong deserved a premiership, but in footy, you don’t necessarily get what you deserve, only what’s coming. Ask the Swans. Their consolation, thin as it is, is that in their development, they were possibly a year early for a premiership. Geelong were well overdue.

Both are paragons of good footy clubs. Geelong’s triumph should and does not equate to Sydney’s failure. It was painfully so on the day – can Lance Franklin ever have played a more ineffectual game? – but not over the decade. “Be strong,” Selwood said by way of fraternal encouragement. Assuredly, they will be.

So as much as this was a day for putting everything back in its place – to wit, the grand final on the MCG, full to the rafters – it was also a day for putting the record straight. The Cats’ style, modified this season in line with the competition wide trend to faster movement, stood up.

They’re the oldest premiership team in VFL/AFL history. They’ve made 30 the new 20.

It might be as simple as this. There was Tom Hawkins and his patent ability to snatch the ball out of the ruck to kick goals, two in a row to launch this rout. He’s an old Cat with new tricks.

There’s Sam De Koning, a 21-year-old intercept mark expert, so much that in the last quarter he intercepted Patrick Dangerfield on the goal line to kick his first career goal. He’s a new Cat with old tricks. And there’s Selwood, slipping a tackle in the last quarter to goal with the outside of his right foot. He’s the old Cat with old tricks that never grow old. How the Geelong faithful loved that. How his teammates did.

You can add others as you like: two Irishmen. Two western Victorian repatriates. Stengle, the first delisted player to bounce back and win a premiership.

You can add Isaac Smith, who after three premierships with Hawthorn went to Geelong as a kind of transition-to-retirement scheme and now has not only a fourth premiership, but a Norm Smith Medal, too. “Unbelievable,” he said. “I’m still in shock.”

You can look at who’s in the team, but also who’s not, depth that is the envy of other clubs. You can look … but you’d be at it all day. That’s for Sunday, down at Kardinia Park.

Grand final day 2022 was a triumph for footy. That is not to minimise the appalling allegations about Hawthorn that emerged during grand final week. They cast a pall, of course. The game has questions to answer, but it would be simplistic and unhelpful to indict all involved in the game. Footy needed this balm.

“Let me entertain you,” crooned Robbie Williams in a rousing pre-match mini-concert. He did. Geelong did. The day did.

“It’s coming home,” bellowed Selwood from the podium when the day was won. He meant the premiership cup, but after two COVID-blighted seasons, two seasons of footy vagrancy, it applied equally to the occasion of the AFL grand final on the MCG, again the shiniest jewel in Melbourne’s crown.

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