Finals Week 3 – Geelong v Brisbane: Starcevich

 

 

Starcevich

 

Sometimes the cards don’t fall your way. Our remote home found me too far from half-a-dozen bush pubs to watch Lions Cats. Each one would have provided a different landscape, environment, crowd, texture. These things are important when watching footy.

 

All that was left was my laptop, in the dark, volume down, so as not to wake the young’un. Flickerings of 93,000, glamour, advertising, glitz, escaping cracks in the blinds, lighting up a mob of grey kangaroos that visits the hills around us regularly.

 

It was a corker game, with almost everything.

 

The game started well, once the footy fans choked down their collective rage about umpires these days making it about themselves. The first half of Swans-Port was 100% unwatchable for it. Unwatchable. Hell, the Lions wouldn’t even have been here if not for that bullshit the week before. The Giants were put on a cross by umps showboating.

 

Fortunately, it was only the Giants. The best jumper by a mile in the AFL, but nobody to barrack for it.

 

Really, it’s reaching breaking point. I only partly blame the umpires. The League is in their ears, yammering every minute, every second. “Pay it!” “Don’t pay it!” The armchair warriors are judging everything by slow motion replay, in this game of speed and humanity and split-second decisions. Unfortunately, thanks to the internet, they’re the ones the AFL listens to. The bitter, the sooks. The ones who call a bit of harmless banter between a coach and a player, (that most of us LOVED), disgraceful. People that hate rather than love, that barrack against rather than for, that shout; “If So-and-so got three for what he did, this bloke should get five!”, when most of us think neither of them should have gotten anything. That see the funniest piss-take break dance ever, and can’t come up with anything better than; ‘MY TAXES PAID FOR THAT!’, with righteous indignation.

 

Umps, their bosses, PR people, overstimulated armchair warriors, the press looking to fill columns, and lawyers. Too many voices. One ball. One whistle. It’s a minefield. A shitshow. And it’s not working.

 

The Cats got a goal early due to said fluff, but after that, thank Christ, the umps mostly found that balance. First time in a while. It was heaven.

 

It was football.

 

Geelong looked it early, but finals footy tells us that means nothing. They spend a good ten minutes dominating without once sticking the knife in. It’s all about momentum and defence in finals. How to shift tides that are working against you. Having a team capable of, as a team, readjusting a game plan. The Lions hit back hard, got that swing back, I thought, mostly to big Oscar in the ruck. Doing the first job of a ruckman – hitting it to his teammates.

 

He popped a shoulder in the second, and changed everything. Stanley got the ball to his smalls, Geelong looked unbeatable. Big Joe was sent to the ruck. Brisbane no longer had their main go-long target.

 

Those who say rucks are overrated don’t know the game. Not even a little. There was a reason the Geelong wings etc were now running rampant.

 

That and Tom Stewart. What a champion. I don’t use that word lightly. His timing is almost as good as his patience. Most other backs get sucked up the ground. Not Tom. He hangs back, marks everything, counter attacks like Donkey Kong! It’s not quite one-on-one, but is modern football.

 

He played the game as if it was his own personal X-Box.

 

Down the other end, Starcevich was leading the charge. Punching, spoiling, stopping their run, being a finals physical presence. As well as stopping Stengle deader than doornails. Tough, hard running. Everywhere. But Miers was kicking freak goals, then setting up others. Geelong were doing it easy.

 

Come half time, the Lions put their car over the pits, re-jigging to allow for the loss of Oscar, and Joe being absent from down forward. The half backs brought it through the middle now, rather than down the wings to a tall men contest near the boundary. The new norm, really. Try to pack mark, and if it spills free, the defence are hemmed in by the white line. Ball up, or out of bounds, set up and reload. Stoppages, stoppages. A spoilt mark from the lead up the guts is deadly to you on the rebound! Defenders are now so good at running, a few links and you’ve gone from being in your 50 to being in big trouble.

 

Leading up the guts, the other mob can run from everywhere.

 

Geelong steadied, but now the Lions were sharing the load beautifully. The game was hanging in the balance worse than the final scene of The Italian Job – or, for the next generation, its rip-off, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

 

Enter Rayner. He looks like a tough bastard, but hasn’t delivered in finals. Not nearly. He took hangers, and finished off goals created by running half backs and was everywhere. The cause of a run, or the result of one, irrelevant.

 

The Lions had the sweetness of momentum gods favouring them, and Geelong had no-one grabbing it back by the short and curlies.

 

Joe, for all his heart and character, is clearly not a ruckman, yet Stanley stopped monstering this fact. He won hitouts, but now rarely down the throat of anyone. Such a waste. Why? Tired, injured. How good is he? Cometh the hour, surely, cometh the man…

 

If he’s got it.

 

Charging through the last, Henry kept Geelong in it, but Starcevich once more upped the volume. He covered all points. Stengle was nowhere.

 

Andrews shut down Cameron when it mattered most. When the game was there for winning. Danger was good without seizing it. They all were. Only Rayner took it to the next level.

 

Rayner, and, I thought, Hipwood. Poor ol’ Hipwwod. Ragged out by everyone, always. With Joe gone he was everywhere, contesting on the wing when the Lions had no targets, leading through half forward, charging up the other wing. Unlike Cameron, who got a few easy ones down back, Hipwood didn’t have a Henry staying home. It was up to him. Just him. To be everywhere. If he didn’t bring it to ground, Tom Stewart and Jack Henry would have marked it and rebounded and done their whole Geelong thing. Hipwood saved the game, absolutely.

 

The last five minutes reeked of a set-up for Greek tragedy. The Lions held a lead that bounced around 1.5. Never quite two goals. The door ajar for one-point miracles.

 

First, Duncan was running in, 20 out, and Payne turned an average game into a forever moment, with a tackle that gets entire states into Grand Finals. If the mob of maroon and blue is going apey this time next week, all good backmen the world over will ignore whichever pretty-boy is getting the Norm, and remember that moment and nod to no-one and each other, as they sigh easily.

 

Then Stanley had his chance to feed that one-point beast. He got a soft-but-there free after fluffing a ruckman’s breakfast (easy mark), was given a shot from 15 out, dead-enough in front, 41 seconds to go – more than enough time to get the goal then launch again from the middle and squeeze through the stuff of legends.

 

And he missed it.

 

Game over.

 

When he was walking in for his shot it seemed all of Fate was leaning towards two Cats majors in under a minute.

They say nobody remembers the Prelim finalists. That’s bullshit. The fans do. The clubs do. The recruiters and sponsor officers do, most assuredly. “We’re close.” “Come over to us.” “Stay with us.” The players do, absolutely! Prelims hold more life-long nightmares than grand finals.

 

And often more highlights.

 

The game was the guts. Speckies, great goals, lead shifts, drama… All it lacked to really be one for the ages, I thought, was a dominant forward. One who made the whole crowd scared or excited every time the ball went near him. A lead-up player, tall or small, charging at the pill, rather than away from it. It needed a Hawkins, a Johnno Brown, even a Toby Green. A Bobby Hill, turning it on from the git-go. But why get greedy?

 

A backman, Starcevich, was clearly best on ground. The ‘experts’ who give their ratings only to then back them up with stats can shove them up their Khyber. They can go to hell. Presence, finals presence, you can’t buy it, bottle it, or find it on a stats sheet. Starca had and gave everything.

 

Forwards, even if former champions in the media box, often miss these things.

 

Brisbane did it, two matches in a row, through will to win, force of personality. Through team discipline. The ability, collectively, to change tack and stick to it. Worthy grand finalists, having survived a corker.

 

All that’s left from here, is the pure joy of watching South Melbourne take on Fitzroy for the decider.

 

No laptops for that. Sacrilege! I’ll make sure wherever it is, there’ll be people, fans going loopy!

 

 

GEELONG                    1.5    8.7    10.8   12.13 (85)
BRISBANE                   3.2    5.6    10.10   14.11 (95)

 

GOALS
Geelong: O.Henry 4, Cameron 2, Miers 2, Mannagh, Dempsey, Dangerfield, Blicavs,
Brisbane: Ah Chee 3, Rayner 2, Cameron 2, Bailey 2, Morris 2, Hipwood, McCluggage, Lohmann

 

BEST
Geelong: Holmes, Dangerfield, Stewart, Miers, O.Henry
Brisbane: Lohmann, Neale, McCluggage, Starcevich, Zorko, Bailey

 

INJURIES
Geelong: Holmes (left hamstring), J.Henry (right ankle)
Brisbane: McInerney (left shoulder)

 

SUBSTITUTES
Geelong: Mitch Duncan (replaced Max Holmes in the last quarter)
Brisbane: Conor McKenna (replaced Oscar McInerney in the third quarter)

 

Crowd: 93,066 at the MCG

 

 

 

Read more from Matt Zurbo HERE

 

 

 

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