Late Lapse Is Just Like Old Times

The Age

Saturday September 20, 2008

By Samantha Lane

IN LAST year's first preliminary final, the Cats, then opposed to Collingwood, looked like they were playing not to lose more than they were playing to win. But they succeeded. Just. And the extent to which Geelong, after that nervy five-point victory, dominated the following week's grand final could not be overstated.

Before the very same Friday night preliminary final fixture that, 12 months earlier, had seen the Pies make the competition's dominant side wobble, Geelong - now with an even more luminous aura after a near perfect back-up season - was the hottest favourite in history to dispose of the Western Bulldogs before the last AFL fixture of 2008.

"I think last year and this year it was tough coming into the preliminary final because there was a lot of pressure on us with this expectation that we only lost one game during the year and we really should make the grand final," Gary Ablett said after his side's unglamorous 29-point win last night.

"It's kind of good to get that out of the way. We know we're there now and we can kind of relax going into it and just play our best footy."

At half-time, the Cats looked anything but the cocky bunch Bulldog big-mouth Jason Akermanis had labelled them pre-match. They had a 21-point lead and had strung together six unanswered goals, but they walked to their rooms as if they were trailing. Steve Johnson and Mathew Stokes looked to be asking each other how all the good things that usually happened like clockwork in their forward line were hardly happening at all. Joel Corey put an arm around Cameron Mooney who had managed just one point and five touches.

Geelong's forward entries had been uncharacteristically messy. The Dogs were balancing beautifully slick disposal with a patient approach, while the Cats defenders were scrambling and, under a degree of pressure they have scarcely had to face for two seasons, regularly kicked backwards.

And yet two minutes into the second half broadcasters were announcing that Geelong had made its way into successive grand finals. After Travis Varcoe goaled the margin was an eminently assailable 27 points, but for the remainder of the game the Bulldogs forced the Cats into doing things they wouldn't usually do.

It meant the fans saw things they normally wouldn't. Like the honest-as-day Cameron Ling jumping into an opponent's back 30 metres out from the Bulldogs goal when he could have stayed down and trusted his ability to out-body. Like Mark Thompson - so relaxed in the coach's box at stages this year that he even ate sandwiches - almost hitting the roof as he watched the mistake. Like the Cats clocking up eight clangers in 10 minutes during the same quarter.

"I don't know, it's a bit of a voodoo I guess," midfielder James Kelly said of Geelong's relationship with the preliminary final fixture.

"I think the week off, I don't think it does much for you. It's hard to miss a week and bounce back into the intensity of finals into a prelim. Last year we were focused a bit too much on recovery and this year we probably tried to do a little bit more."

The Bulldogs did last night precisely what Collingwood did in the third week of September last year - they made a reputed football deity appear mortal. Geelong too, retraced its steps; it did not play well in the game before the grand final, but it made the grand final. Which suggests that when the Cats meet either St Kilda or Hawthorn they will be in a particularly ruthless mood.

© 2008 The Age

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