Season 2022 has been replete with great games. The first preliminary final was not one of them.
Geelong will not, nor should they, make any apology. In the first half, they did what they came to do, what they had to do. In the second half, they did as they pleased. In the last quarter, they could have done their nails.
Gryan Miers and the Cats celebrate a goal.Credit:AFL Photos
But even in the triumphal moment of their procession into another grand final, there was for the Cats a bitter-sweet element. Max Holmes, one of the revelations of the season, twanged a hamstring and was subbed out of the game and maybe out of next week’s finale. On the bench, he blinked back tears.
But post-match, he and coach Chris Scott were optimistic. Evidently, not only is this Geelong team supreme, it does a sideline in miracles.
The story of the night could be condensed into the first minute after half-time. A speedy centre break gave Brisbane’s Joe Daniher a rare opportunity, but he kicked it haplessly out on the full. Promptly, Geelong raced the ball to the other end of the ground and the mercurial Tyson Stengle curled a classic goal from the boundary line.
Thereafter, the Cats relaxed into their task and the Lions retreated from theirs. But even after a seven-goals-to-two third quarter, Geelong fans allowed themselves no more than a polite round of applause.
Max Holmes heads to the rooms after hurting a hamstring.Credit:Getty Images
You could say it was preliminary acclaim. Like their team in the last quarter, they were saving themselves. As the game ran down, the backdrop noise made by the crowd of nearly 80,000 was a murmur.
It’s a bit of a preliminary final thing. The stakes are too high, the tension too great. Nerves refuse to unjangle, stomachs to unknot. One team grinds its way into the ascendance and the other, with neither honour nor percentage to play for, trails off and vanishes.
Of last week’s vibrant and fluent Brisbane, there was little to be seen. At half-time, vaunted forwards Charlie Cameron and Dan McStay were both kickless, Eric Hipwood had had just two and Daniher had had no impact and would remain goal-less. It’s inescapable that the Lions functioned better without Daniher last week, but it would have been a brave match committee that overlooked him.
It’s more probable that Brisbane simply came to a natural end. From the last minute of their elimination final, they had been living on borrowed time anyway. Now it ran out. Lachie Neale has been exceptional this September, but at half-time had had only eight touches. The Cats did not tag him; they just kept the ball out of his reach. He would remain a peripheral influence.
Cam Rayner was creative, but a badly twisted ankle early in the second half put an end to his night and season.
Brisbane’s Cam Rayner gets a handball away.Credit:AFL Photos
Geelong worked hard, and made hard work of it. More accurately, it was backbreaking work that in time broke the Lions’ back. All-Australian captain Tom Hawkins kicked one goal from his first five shots. Sheer weight of opportunity meant that he would finish with four.
Jeremy Cameron, as per his brief, roamed up and down the ground, but could not bring the game to heel as he had in the qualifying final. Consummate footballer that he is, he busied himself with the detail and left others to look after the big picture. There was a goal for him eventually, in the half-hour of junk time that was the last quarter. It was like a pat on the head.
Geelong’s strengths were their evergreens. Tom Stewart, Zac Tuohy and Sam de Koning were impassable in defence. So, more pleasingly for the Cats, was Jake Kolodjashnij. A hallmark of this Geelong team is its even-ness. It doesn’t stop at 22.
Paddy Dangerfield was both prolific and penetrating in a best-on-ground performance and Joel Selwood got a free kick for a high tackle, whereupon the Cats knew that all was well in the world. Abetted by a 50-metre penalty, he even kicked a rare latter-day goal. In the grand final, he will break the record for finals games played. But don’t expect him to rest on those laurels.
Earlier on Friday, it was announced that Dr Allen Aylett had died. Aylett was the architect of the national competition and in a way, this was his vision, foundation and frontier clubs duelling on the biggest stage. Anticipation was high.
But Aylett was a savvy footballer before he was a visionary administrator, and he would have known that in footy, sometimes you just take what you get. For Geelong, that was plenty enough.
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