Finals Week 1: Everyone v Everyone

Bush footy finished for us non-finals teams last week, so my hunger grew for the glossy stuff. Normally, one game a week is the go, stop you blunting the game, especially on sub-par matches. But this is finals. A whole weekend of it, every game seemed right. Build that hunger for the Big One. An overgrown kid, counting down Christmas, each day closer making it loom larger.

 

Tigers-Brissy was close, a great shootout, but not the most top-line footy. Not Top 4, not to me. There were individual stars, Cameron, Reiwoldt, indeed, one man showed he can steal a show. Neale won it. There were no two ways about that. So crisp. So hard at it in the guts. Just amazingly sharp and clean with a dozen neutral footies around his ankles, just plain stealing clear Tiger hitouts. Big stages demand force of personality. Force of personality is forever hungry for big stages. It was all good timing.

 

For the Tigers, so many names down, unsighted, or playing in patches. Their bottom six soldiers not nearly as good as their bottom six of yore. They have yet to get over their loss of run from defence with Bachar retired, as much as Rioli and Vlastuin do their best to fill it. Bachar had big game timing.

 

Vlastuin is a weapon, just the best. He deserved better, but don’t we all? It was his teammates that never once put their foot on the throat. A team of too few was beaten by a team of a few great individuals. Big Joe, for example, thrashed in the air. Thrashed! Still found a way to be a 6’24” goal-kicking rover. Force of personality.

 

Then, one day on the plantations later, tired and sore on a Friday, the Swans and Dees went at it. The Dees are a team of unique individuals, characters with character, every one of them comic book unique – the sort you want to barrack for. But as a team, they’ve been figured out, I reckon.

 

Oliver, for all his touches, those amazing reflexes in packs, has been found out. All that slapping on the boot. The opposition have started simply putting a loose man 30 metres in front of him. Petracca, Brayshaw, most of them, slap, slap. Or, and always, long bombs to three competing talls down forward. Not much science, just good anarchy.

 

Though it must be noted, kicks and leads no longer up the guts, but clearly towards the boundary, so that if it’s not a mark, the opposition have no room to spread and run it out. Almost every Dee can kick them from such angles.

 

But relentless bombing it long is not working anymore. Not on its own. There has to be a mix. Sydney won, simply, because they lowered their eyes, and kicked like lasers to blokes free inside 50. Watch the wide angle of Melbourne games, see the amount of free players that are ignored for long bombs.

 

A good defence will punch, and good defence will spread and run and tear them on the counter. It’s not too late. Lower your eyes Melbourne. Update a little.

 

I sent this list to my mate after, near midnight. Before a shower and one more bourbon ended me:

 

Brayshaw, little.
Kozzie, zip.
Gawn, just. Has been the whole second half of the year. Sometimes it’s harder to fall out of the All Oz team than to get into it.
Harms, Honest.
Viney, zip.
Melksham, next level down. Very home-and-away.
Jackson, zip.
Brown, zip.
Spargo, zip.
Neal-Bullen, somebody’s son, I know, but not sure what the Dees see in him.
Langdon, second half just.
Petracca, injured.
Oliver, too much slap. Get tackled three or four times more trying to get off a good kick, mate. And, in the process, hit ten or more targets. Look at Pendles.
Fritch, did what he could in a forward line designed to work against his need for open space to dominate.

 

Backline, on the whole, just sensational!

 

Watching May spank Buddy was almost pornographic. A Prime versus a Past if ever there were two. Hibberd, Emmett Dunne (Lever), all of them. Finals are about the best defence as much as they are the best (non) injury list.

 

The Swans don’t have highs and lows like them, they’ve just got this beautifully even spread. And those low, speedy kicks to loose inside 50s. No pack marks or smalls snapping through the masses required.

 

Though Papley is sort of brilliant. A gloriously intense pain in the arse you love to hate, and love for that. Around him, the air is thick with intensity.

 

My only other team observation on the game, was again in regards to the Dees. When up, their defenders were marking everything. Defence becoming instant attack. Calm attack. With either tempo an option. When things were tight, it was; punch. Even if three of them were going up against each other. Then it became 50/50 contest after contest inside the Swans 50 – enter the very angry ant – Papley.

 

Brian Lake, where are you? Show this gen how to go for your marks, have the strength of character to back yourself. You, mate, deserved every Premiership medal you won. Only Moore plays like you.

 

****

 

Then, a drive across the state to see a crook Mum, seeing as my mob have their weekends free sooner than hoped for.

 

On the way we passed my league’s finals venue, two teams slogging it out, while my team fund-raised by manning the barbies. I desperately wanted to be a part of it. Hanging with the team, and supporters, watching a bit of footy, selling some burnt dead meat, sharing a chat with the year’s opponents. But there were family obligations.

 

****

 

Cats v Pies was obviously the game of the year. By the length of the ‘G. Tight, intense, one-on-one, at times brilliant – it was football. The game you bottle and send into space, in case aliens one day wonder what we were on about. It had e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g!

 

Watching it with a Pies mate in his lounge, ten minutes into the second I told him; ‘Mate, this is so obviously going to be one of those games where we can just skip to the last five minutes to see who kicks the winning score in the last 90 seconds.’

 

‘They should just start the game with two minutes to go,’ I added.

 

He laughed and told me, ‘Opening siren, first goal wins!’

We both laughed, and knew we were right, but watched the whole thing anyways.

 

Rohan redeeming 50 bad finals. Once again, though, are his good games a result of Geelong’s good games, or does his good game make a Geelong good game. The jury’s still out. I suspect it comes down to whether or not you like him. But tonight he kicked them when needed. Had his moment.

 

I’m sick of Geelong. Always up there. But credit to them, they are a team, like Melbourne, full of characters. If a few fewer, and a bit less likeable.

 

‘Imagine the Cats team if every player was 28,’ I told my mate.

 

‘Ohhh….’ He got orgasmic.

 

Both backlines were next level. Darcy Moore is the guts! Geelong’s is more even. It’s all built around that for both clubs. They both made lots of errors, but genuine, relentless pressure will do that. It’s why the game was so much better than Tiges v Lions. It was less about any star’s up or down game, as two backlines, their run and structure.

 

The Pies are the best ever at starting from the backline and moving it forward into space. One team will attack for ten minutes, until the whole ground is in their forward line, then the Pies will go bomp, bomp, bomp, goal! They could have only 20% of the play, yet stay level with anyone! Hell, call it an advantage.

 

My mate told me half way through the second; ‘What happened to De Goey, he used to be a real player?’ I told him half way through the third, ‘Watch him go now, a close game, a final. Big games demand big personalities. Force of will.’ (It was why Reiwoldt kicked all those goals from long, impossible angles when he had to.) De Goey was the same a few weeks earlier against Melbourne. Just had time, had space the others didn’t. Hunted and gathered on his lonesome. He was brilliant. But, again, the Cats had a whole team. I dunno, it felt to me like Geelong were always going to win the game, even if a toss of the coin was what would do it.

 

The siren, when it came, sounded like a real; ‘To be continued…’ moment.

 

Cox continues to improve, credit to him. Like any good big man, it takes time, and he seems a ripper fella.

 

But a great ruck for either team would be epic.

 

****

 

Then, when the bottle shop had been visited and kids were being put in bed, the Doggies went ZIP…! playing over in the West. 42 points to one, or something. Yet, a few goals pegged back and it just seemed like the Purples were going to do it. They ran harder at the ball, muchly. They ram harder in straighter lines, through the middle. They ran harder.

 

The Dogs have Naughton, the Dockers have six dedicated, fast, well-knitted backmen. Not the best individual players back there, but the best knitted back six in the competition. Easy. With that sort of run it was like watching water pour relentlessly through sieves. Tough and majestic.

 

Soon, their backs were pressing through the middle, the Doggies weren’t getting it past the wing logos. Never remotely looked like it.

 

It was great seeing the Purple do so well, look so hard. Such a comeback was a nice little afterthought to the previous game’s sheer glory!

 

****

 

A great start to a month of climbing a pyramid towards the Grand Final.

 

A tough team will win it. An injury free team. Every team left has a great midfield, great runners. The best running back six. The ones who hit the most targets.

 

Although, having a forward who can clunk a few, rendering all structures around them mute, would help a little.

 

I got lucky this week, made a lot of good, early calls, as if I’ve played a lot, and might know some things. But I know enough to know next week, at least half of those things will be tipped on their head. Teams struggling will suddenly click, and visa versa. Umpires will overreact, going from playing everything to absolutely nothing, because the powers that be instruct them that’s what we want. As a backman, and a tackler, I HATE a rule-less game! Boys, it’s not about you, don’t change for finals, lease. Just umpire.

 

All I know is, after this first week of finals, what a great time it is to be alive, and in love with footy! Cats v Pies was framed beautifully by their challengers.

 

It’s now 3:30am, and I’m half a state away from home with my family. I have a social match to play in the city tomorrow. Time to die a little.

 

I’ve more than had my AFL time this weekend, thanks! They say there’s life beyond footy.

 

 

 

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