Grand Final 2023 – Collingwood v Brisbane – Love, Hate, Advantages

Love, Hate, Advantages

 

A ripper. A dead set ripper! Insane intensity, skills, highlights, and drama at the finish. A grand Grand Final, no quarter asked or given. A minute and change to go, the crowd starts celebrating, the crowd panics, the crowd celebrates as if the world has lost its moorings. The framework of this ultimate of games, of the greatest of sports, as is often the case, was built around individual performances, and contests, within a team structure.

 

Stories, moments. Sliding doors and brief windows.

 

Yet, there was the viewer’s framing, too. We are the tide, the wave, that makes a Grand Final. Each year I try and experience it somewhere different. I’ve been to the game, watched it in the desert, tropics, at a barfly’s pub, in a shed on the southern tip of Tassie, in Altona with an ex-AFL legend. This year, I’d played footy he day before with the Bats in the pub league, so put our child first, watching it with families, at a mate’s place, in suburbia. Kids, kids everywhere! Crying, playing, farting, hitting the water pistols and sprinklers.

 

Kids falling away as a fella I didn’t know, called Nick, and I focused.

 

The ball was bounced, the single, sweetest moment in football. In the universe. The bullshit and fluff and yammering talking heads forgotten, nothing left but that moment of pure anticipation. An empty canvas.

 

Football.

 

The rucks were key. Neither Oscar or Cox are stars, though one’s a loud personality. Neither can regularly hit their rovers like Max, or split open packs for their little men like a Nank, or dominate around the ground like Tim. Still, both tried to ruck, at which Oscar is clearly better. Stronger, smarter. De Goey didn’t get a sniff because of it.

 

Coming into the game, De Goey was the key. The Daicos bros have silk. But De Goey gets it. He single-handedly dragged Collingwood over the line against the Giants. That game of his was Pike v Sydney, it was Nick Davis v Geelong. The stage was set for him to be this year’s Dusty.

 

But he was extremely well held at the stoppages. And the ruck was a huge factor.

 

Collingwood got the early break, but due to a dead-set corker hit out to Bailey – crisp, free of the pack, deliberate, that would have made ruckmen of old weep, Brisbane got their first goal and started marching.

 

Eventually, Cox started doing what he did the week before. He stopped rucking and gave me flashbacks to Peter Moore and Gary Dempsey. It drives me fucking insane that the umpires know so little about ruck work! Cox held and gripped and tugged on Oscar’s ruck arm, turning a craft into a random shitshow, of no leaping, and hands only being let go of at the last possible second, leaving no finesse with the hitouts. The umps did nothing. Nothing! I despise it! One free would have solved the problem.

 

But it worked. Oscar was clearly the better player, fought hard on the ground, but targets weren’t hit. Thanks to the holding, there was copious neutral ball. The Collingwood mids were now in the contest.

 

Coming into the game, Lachie was the key. The Brownlow Medallist. He doesn’t play in bursts, is not that sort of explosive. Is just, clearly, better, more intense, more dynamic than others. He, like De Goey, was well held at stoppages.

 

But De Goey is a big occasion player, larger than life. Throughout the final, he hit the leather in the most key moments. Brisbane had got their physical, bullish game into gear, bringing 0-2 back to 3-3, with a steamroller’s momentum. Then De Goey marked outside 50 and kicked a ball-tearer after the siren that set the tone for everything;

 

There will be no breaking away. Steamroller will meet steamroller. This will be hard and epic.

 

Charlie was key as the game unfolded. Hill was key as the game unfolded. The small forwards were, which surprised no footy fanatics. The MCG surface shrinks to the size of a Twisties packet come the Grand Final. With so much pressure, insane chase-downs, smothers, tackles, every player going above and beyond their norms, neither team gets that wave running both of them build their game around. The ball comes in long, half-blind-and-high time and again. Ruckmen drop back where they normally wouldn’t, putting their kidney’s and spines on the line, everybody flies, backmen are determined, obsessive with their spoiling. They got this far by hating to lose more than loving to win, and are desperate to prove it. Everybody wants to be Leo Barry at once, so nobody is. In the air, it’s chaos.

 

Big men rarely stand out in a close Grand Final. Enter the small forwards. Fast enough to run back towards goal on the break, while the big men are caught on the wing, running up to where there is finally space for them.

 

The small forwards, who rove, and weave through said chaos.

 

Hill was brilliant. He took a hanger for the ages. It is simply not a classic GF without one. He had the sit and milked it, throwing himself up, he just rose over Starsa, body straight, cool enough to juggle it while falling.

 

He was too quick, both running back from the wing on turnovers, and on the ground. There was also too much space  for him down there. He kept the Collingwood flame. Kept it hot and roaring, when the game was there for the losing. Bobby, Bobby, Bobby! Living the dream, running wild, every kids dream being realised. No pressure. Four goals later it was there for the winning.

 

He was fantastic.

 

The ball didn’t come in as crisply to the Lion’s forward line. They had the Richmond chaos happening. Bull it forward, break tackles. Yet he did what he could in a war zone not made for him. For once, the next level down to his opposite.

 

Crisp was amazing all game. The standout underdog. The unheralded, underrated. He did a De Goey after the half time siren. Another goal at death’s knell. Once more, a message was sent, same as the first. “We’re not stopping.”

 

I’d brought my footy down from the bush. The game day ball presented by the Eagles to me when I played my 700^th match of Adult footy. No mantlepieces for this baby! Footies were made to be kicked. Eventually it will fade, but only after I’ve used it blue. Each kick, each mark, that little sweeter. Thanks Eagles.

 

My new mate, Nick and I stroll out in the middle of suburbia, for the laziest Half-Time Champions ever. He’s in fancy thongs, so I take my sneakers off to match him. We find our range between parked cars, powerlines and traffic everywhere, and start lobbing easy barefoot kicks to each other. To touch leather, to feel a part of it, this game, not just watchers. To avoid all the hollow hype and mind-numbing bullshit that comes on at half time. To keep it about the game. About football.

 

I tell him about Collingwood. The working-class club that won 4 in a row back in the Great Depression. How the players were given ‘Wren money’ slipped into their boots, every time they broke another player’s bones. About how the supporters would piss into their beer bottles and pour them on the opposition players in the race. Or the way the Collingwood team would arrange a hearse to be parked outside the visiting team’s rooms. Stories, history. Yet people still instinctively don’t like them. Why? Jealousy? Tradition? Is it not the club, but their supporters they really hate? The working class?

 

Is it as simple as black-and-white? No room for grays. Get on board or meet us head on?

 

Whatever. I’m grateful.

 

And Nick, in turn, dodging more and more traffic, told me about his footy journey.

 

Lastly, he noted, as another shiny hatchback passed. “Where the hell are they going? Shouldn’t they be already be bedded down, watching it somewhere?”

 

He stubbed a toe and we were done. Perfect.

 

I had even managed to kick the pill into someone’s yard, which felt hugely Australian.

 

Second half, we kept waiting for Brisbane to break away. Grand Finals are physical. These were the two most aggressively physical teams all year, by a mile. And Brisbane was the more physical of the two of them. Everything was tight, earned. Ball-up after exhausting ball-up. Contest after contest. But as De Goey hand announce, and Crisp had echoed, Collingwood weren’t having a bar of it.

 

The stats minded idiots, no doubt, will point to the fact the Pies had so many more scoring shots as to why ‘they were the better team, that’s why they won.’ And ‘they were in front longer, that’s why they were the better team.’ And other such utter dribble.

 

The points came in dribs and drabs. They had zero scoreboard pressure, because they didn’t equate to a more than two goal lead at any stage. Two goals the difference? Gettable. Especially for a physical beast of a side, who could win it with a burst. That was all that mattered.

 

Collingwood did not deserve to win one scratch more than Brisbane. The team that was in front at the end of such a heaving, relentless battle, would simply be the victor. The last mob standing.

 

Players threw themselves in. There were brutal tackles, countless smothers. Nothing was left in the tank. Nothing! Nothing!

 

Only one tall forward held sway. Joe Daniher ran, he presented. He marked everywhere. He showed force of will, force of personality. He pantsed Cox in the ruck, he presented. He kicked goals against the best backman in the tightest moments of the biggest game.

 

I feel for the Cunningtons of the world. Grand Finals give great players a chance to become elite. Joe became elite yesterday.

.

Down the other end of the oval, Harris Andrews spanked blondie. What was his name? Something, Something, Reserves, Something. A class below. Got no kicks, dropped three uncontested marks, gave away frees in the last. There are keyboard champions that will roll out cliched tripe they heard a commentator say as if it is wisdom. “Blondie did his job shutting down Harris.” We had one at the family day. “Bullshit!” Nick and I shouted, laughing at him.

We’d been watching in the kitchen, away from the horde in the lounge. Closer to the beer, without commentary or distraction.

 

“Harris got bugger all intercept marks,” the man retorted. “They said so.”

 

We just laughed more.

 

There were no interceptable kicks. The bombs came in instead. Harris killed every one of them.

 

Once again, it was just me and my new mate, Nick; “Harris is destroying it, but look at those clean fists,” I told him in the 3^rd. “They’re a foot above everyone else’s hands. If he were Brian Lake, they’d be clean marks. He should go for them, take the next step. Turn an aerial shitshow into clean attack. Be Brian.”

 

Later, Harris must have heard. He knew, like a leader does, as the game entered the last, that it had to be won, not saved. With Coleman shut down since half time (great coaching), and the mids ramming into each other for one-all draws, it was Harris who kept the Lions machine rolling, now going for pack marks, taking them, or having the ball spill forward to waiting Lions, not cautiously thumped over the boundary.

 

Force of Will, force of personality. Would he be the one? When it came to the last quarter, if it was all evens. Which player would own it?

 

Down the other end, the other intercept king was suffering the exact same fate. Darcy Moore had no interceptable kicks. And worse. He was on Joe. Joe kicked three. Joe kept them in it. Joe missed a few that would have won it. That he should have gotten. Joe gave his all, up, down and sideways. Moore did well to spoil, but had zero attacking influence. He was too busy chasing someone who wanted, desperately, to not lose, all over the oval.

 

It was a great study in how it often takes a team to create a great intercept marker. Roos was the all-time champion at it, but only because Stephens would cover his man for him. Murphy was knocked sideways, out of the game, by a brutal ground ball contest with Zorko. Moore had no foil. Moore was reduced to simply defending.

 

Maynard couldn’t attack either. Charlie was too dangerous. Yes, the meathead was pantsed once or twice, but Charlie could have very easily worn Hill’s Charlie if Maynard hadn’t been so relentlessly defensive. It was the right call. A team call.

 

Make no mistake. None. Darcy is the team spokesman, its media piece, but Maynard is its energy, its on-field captain, its leader. Love him or hate him, he is Collingwood. Because you love him or hate him.

 

That is what is so incredibly good about the Pies. There is nothing neutral about watching them. You love or hate, you feel, you BARRACK!

 

I love Hating them! And when the game is done, love them for it and am grateful.

 

Similarly, Hipwood was pantsed by Howe, etc, all. Mihocek was pantsed too. But, again, the greats give something, even when they are producing nothing. Mihocek worked his way down the ground at clinch moments in the 3^rd and fourth, to provide linking marks. Good marks. Attacking play. When it mattered.

 

The third quarter was a pure grind. Elliott missed goals he’d normally eat, then shit out with that assassin’s smirk of his. It was indicative of many players, hitting the wall, smashed by the heat, starting to go safe for the big finish. Hill had faded a bit, nobody was truly seizing the game by the short and curlies. They were fighting contest to contest.

 

Come the last quarter, there was that goal in it. And still, the feeling was, the hot weather, the strength, Brisbane would break way, or come home strong, Harris leading the charge from down back. But Collingwood got the jump, and everything became titanic, sliding door moments, open then shut windows, crashing into each other. Each one vital, the stuff of legends.

 

Joe did everything he could. All game, Brisbane had been terrible in the way they flooded, leaving nothing to aim for on the turnover. Even when they already had possession, there they all were, in the Collingwood half. Too often the ball came back to Howe and his mates, on their own, who chip, chip, chipped it, without any real pressure, back to when it came from.

 

But with the game on the line, Joe ran back with heart and soul, time and again, throwing himself the wrong way, with the flight of the ball, at easy Pies marks, breaking through the shielding Collingwood player, to the marker. Spoiling, bringing in the runners. Not a stat involved, just Herculean effort. Would he be the one to grab the game by the throat? Be Wanga, be Long? Be Jarman in the last v St Kilda?

 

He was Epic, yet, he had the chance to put them in front from 40 and fluffed it.

 

Coleman was a one man game within a game. He had dominated the first half, been shut down, then come back hard, charging in with no fear, no pain. Just relentless, without getting as much of it. Yet he had the ball running, from 45, time to steady, and also fluffed it. Another Brisbane player had an easy enough shot and fluffed it. A Grand Final shot on goal. Like the one Sheed fucking nailed a few years earlier. Like De Goey’s. The gettable ones that win Premierships. Yes, Collingwood had a bazooble more scoring shots, but so what? It seemed to me Brisbane were missing them when they really counted.

 

Regardless, they were on the charge, having shots. Anyone could have won, both teams deserved to.

 

Daicos-the-better continued to validate the hype, 4 quarters long, just as McCluggage gave the grunt for the Lions. The silk v the muscle.

 

Pendles did what Pendles does, and has for all time. In a tight game, stood tall, owned the last. You just can’t beat old heads sometimes. Whether in the contest, or, probably more importantly, for the calming chips, just knew where to be, when, as much as any individual passage.

 

Then, the sliding door doozy.

 

Berry had had the worst of Grand Finals. The Brisbane tough man winger just wasn’t there, as much as Steele Sidebottom was, and had been for almost two decades. The workhorse. The diesel motor, the toiler. The likable grin. Sidey. The clubman versus the young, hard colt.

 

Steele took another mark, on true wing, against the boundary, and Berry slung him for the most obvious 50. Yes, he was trying to impact the moment, slow him up, be physical, but was just dumb. Dumb, and so costly. These things decide premierships.

 

Steele can’t kick over a jam jar. But a GF on the line? A man of pure character? A shot now from just behind the 50? Roll out the barrels!

 

These key moments. These key players. 4 1/2 minutes left, the Pies are full steam ahead. The shit was flying and Brisbane now had to really catch it.

 

Nick and I were on the edges of our seats, as happy as pigs in shit. Of course, in that moment, the kids figured out they could make shadows by standing in front of the projector. The fact it made us so stressed was, to them, hilarious.

 

A minute and a half, and was still just under two goals.

 

But McCluggage did brilliantly, somehow just keeping the ball in while dodging two Pies players right there, with him, once, twice, three times, he drew them in, dancing the ball on the line while himself way over it, and got a kick off to Joe, dead centre. There’s a kick in it.

 

“Here’s that surge!” I laughed to Nick, shoeing away rugrats.

 

The halls of legend have been waiting for this moment.

 

Sure enough, the ball pinged about for a bit, before Brissie, indeed, surged forward. One of their players had it running full pace, forward of the centre, ready to drive deep, but the most desperate lunge by a Pie led to the kick somehow both skying and grubbing. What a lunge, all-time, fingertips, forever lost in the moment. Desperation. More stuff that wins the unwinnable! Forgotten in the pandemonium.

 

But the ball still went forward enough for the Lion surge to continue running full pace with it. Four or five of them, hornets, charging, the defenders flatfooted. Neale gathered on the charge, breaking through Weightwatchers’ David Cloke, Oleg, who clearly tripped him. In hindsight, it was maybe the most important trip of all time. Not deliberate, I suspect, just a tackle that slipped with Neale’s momentum. Or maybe it was. Irrelevant. Either way, I hope he gets some Wren money. It most likely won the Pies a Grand Final.

 

I hope he lies awake dreaming of it, reliving it. He beat the surge. Him. I hope it gives him a hard-on.

 

The ump blew a free as the ball fell out to Bailey, who was facing away from goal and under the hammer from three Pies.

 

The ump called;

 

“Advantage!”

 

The Brisbane players were going apey, Collingwood defending to save souls, bodies were clashing. Chaos, anarchy. Collingwood cleared sweetly, chipped it around for 30 seconds and entered mythology.

 

Did they deserve to win? 3,000%. They fought the toughest of fights. They stayed in front. They came back, and stayed in front again. The won.

 

They won! 

 

There were a dozen mistakes made by two dozen players in the last few minutes, and an umpire. That’s the human condition. Collingwood won, fair and square, god damn it! Bring home the bacon!!!

 

If I were a Collingwood supporter, I’d own it. I’d wear a black t-shirt with the white word ‘Advantage’ on it, all summer. Nothing else except some shorts, and maybe thongs. Those in the know will know, and it will drive them crazy! But stop with the righteous free kick counts and points tallies. Odds are the sooks who do that were the same sooks who carried on about certain shepherd a few years earlier. Favour fell your way because you were in front. You earned that lead. You won! Won! Nothing else matters.

 

There was a beautiful moment saved just for television, where the camera was focused, high definition, in slow motion, on the field, randomly, Collingwood players passing left and right, in close, far away, across, forward, every muscle tensed in the pure, unadulterated joy of winning a Grand Final. Punctured, occasionally, by the blurred image of a fallen adversary. Collingwood players everywhere. A sea of roaring back and white behind them.

 

In that moment, I’m there.

 

I’m surrounded by Gods! Gods! 22 of them, and their fallen adversaries.

 

And pop, I’m back in suburbia, being a dad. Surrounded by pissing, farting, caring, laughing, lovely children.

 

More from Old Dog Here

 

COLLINGWOOD   4.4     9.9     10.15     12.18 (90)
BRISBANE            3.0     9.3     11.5       13.8 (86)

 

GOALS
Collingwood: Hill 4, Crisp 2, De Goey 2, N.Daicos, Mihocek, Pendlebury, Sidebottom
Brisbane: Cameron 3, Daniher 3, Bailey 2, McCarthy 2, McCluggage 2, Robertson

 

BEST
Collingwood: Hill, N.Daicos, Crisp, Howe, Mitchell, Pendlebury
Brisbane: McCluggage, Daniher, Coleman, Andrews, Bailey, Cameron

 

INJURIES
Collingwood: Murphy (concussion)
Brisbane: Nil

 

SUBSTITUTES
Collingwood: Patrick Lipinski (replaced Nathan Murphy at quarter-time)
Brisbane: Jarryd Lyons (replaced Callum Ah Chee in the fourth quarter)

 

Crowd: 100,024 at the MCG

2023 Norm Smith Medal voting

 

15 – Bobby Hill (Coll)
5 – Keidean Coleman (Bris)
4 – Nick Daicos (Coll)
3 – Tom Mitchell (Coll)
2 – Jack Crisp (Coll)
1 – Scott Pendlebury (Coll)

 

Judges’ voting

Luke Darcy (Chair) – B Hill 3, N Daicos 2, S Pendlebury 1
Eddie Betts – B Hill 3, T Mitchell 2, K Coleman 1
Jude Bolton – B Hill 3, K Coleman 2, T Mitchell 1
Sarah Olle – B Hill 3, K Coleman 2, J Crisp 1
Luke Shuey – B Hill 3, N Daicos 2, J Crisp 1

 

 

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