The Prelim, or, Into the Blue Again

What a moment. Bradley Ottens, playing his best game for the club, in the club’s biggest game in 10 years, palms down yet another hit out, straight into the path of Gary Junior. The-son-of, continuing to write his own folk-lore, shrugs off a would-be tackler, accelerates away and snaps, what will be, the winning goal from 40 metres out. I breathe again. The Cats best player has come through when it was needed most.

Despite the fact that my heart had to be manually restarted several times, that was the best game I’ve seen all year. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak and afterwards, didn’t know how to act. The Lady Captain said I sounded like I’d seen a ghost. Hopefully I had; the ghost of Geelong’s past, just buried at a funeral attended by 98,000.

There’s a lot to like about winning a prelim final like that. With Collingwood playing out of their skin, a few of our players down and the umpires continually bending us over, we still found a way to win. And that in itself will be the biggest thing to come out of either prelim final. While Port was piggy-backed into a Grand Final, Geelong faced, and passed, a searching test. They will feel like they can overcome anything.

Brad Ottens dominated the ruck and Geelong looked twice as good at the centre breaks with him in the middle. There’s a bit of talk that, due to Blake’s patchy form, Steven King may come into the side for the GF. But I don’t see that happening. In fact, I don’t see any changes to the team and wonder if King will even be at the club next season.

However, it might be worth mentioning that Shannon Byrnes not only missed another easy goal, but he handpassed directly to a Collingwood player late in the final term (which resulted in a Magpie goal) and astonishingly, actually tackled Matthew Stokes to the extent that a free kick was paid to Collingwood for Byrnes’ tackle. Unbelievable, just un-fucking-believable.

On the subject of un-fucking-believable, Geelong must surely get a fairer deal with the umpires next week. The obvious two that stood out were the 50m penalty paid against Selwood that gifted Shane O’Bree a goal and the last minute free kick to Tony Rocca for, well, I’m still not sure what that was paid for. And how was Rocca’s form? Going off clutching his leg so he wouldn’t have to take the pressure shot; way to bitch out, ‘Pebbles’. And he had the nerve to question Tom Harley’s courage? That was the most pissweak display I have ever seen on the field. Don’t be surprised if Rocca is moved when the Pies make their play for Chris Judd. What a heartless impostor, Sav was 10 times the player Anthony is.

The Brownlow
I don’t know, but it seems to me that the Brownlow must be a distraction for the players of teams in the Grand Final. Every year it seems that the two Grand Finalists have contenders for the medal who have to pretend to be unaffected by the whole deal. Surely there is a better time to have what is probably sport’s most drawn out award ceremony.

But perhaps I just think that this year because Geelong has two genuine chances to take home the Chas. I have a sneaking suspicion that Junior won’t poll as well as many people think he will, and that Bartel may actually finish with more votes than him, albeit not enough to win it.

As much as I hate to say it, I get the feeling Chad ‘Douche Bag’ Cornes may win it, or even, dare I say it, Brent ‘worst-Brownlow-medallist-ever’ Harvey. I actually had a dream a few weeks ago that I picked up the paper to see Harvey had actually won it in a tie with Adam Goodes. Needless to say, I didn’t wake up in the best of moods.

Jon Brown may be a chance as well; I’d imagine he’ll have around four or five 3-vote games. And his team-mate Simon Black, a proven vote getter, might be worth a rough punt at about 70-1.

The VFL
The Geelong VFL team wrapped up the premiership today, flogging Coburg by 70 plus points with Tom Lonegan kicking 5 goals in the third quarter after spending the first half in defence. Possible AFL call-ups Steven King, Travis Varcoe and David Johnson all got through unscathed without any of them really being impressive. There were plenty of players who looked good and should be further involved in the seniors next season; Prismall, Davenport, Grima, Hawkins and Gamble all come to mind.

The Final Word
Traditionally, Grand Finals favour the fierce, the strong and the more poised, and Geelong’s hardened edge, not to mention bigger bodies, will show next weekend. We have passed our test and come next Saturday will ask some hard questions of Port. The Cats have been to the edge and buried one ghost already. Next Saturday we will witness a burial of a different sort.