Round 2 – Geelong v Melbourne: Lights On Lights Out

The lights. The lights are shining. Kardinia Park looks like a wonderland. Little diamonds sit on the tips of men’s beards and sparkle in the frizz of a woman’s hair. Rain drops. Tiny, misty, persistent, like a fist full of sparkle tossed into the air. Millions of them. Perhaps billions. Or trillions! They gather in the small of your back and become a trickle and roll down your legs and into your socks. It’s like standing on the edge of Dingle Bay when a summer haze wafts in off the Atlantic. The dampness is simultaneously unnoticeable and all pervasive. It clings and when it clings it gathers, and as it gathers it pools and where it pools it spoils.

 

It started as a mist. The Cats clung to the football and as they clung they gathered in ever increasing numbers. The ball was glistening in the brilliant light like a treasure in a tomb, but only players in the hoops valued it. In the air it was theirs and on the ground they used it to pillage the Demons village.

 

Kelly was the only one to glide while the others slipped. Sure of foot and clean of hands he laughed as the mist turned to drizzle. Balance and poise are brilliant and even more brilliant with clarity of thought. The ruckmen fly and he waits at their feet like Dave Sands with his educated left hand ready to put out an opponent’s lights. Kelly swoops. Birds of prey might say they swoop like a Kelly because his swoop is just as effortless and deadly. Others fumble where Kelly invents. They rush and he ambles. A player of a generation? Maybe. Men of great skill and muscle can only watch as he disappears into the murky night, heading goalward.

 

The Demons play a delusional game. Get it forward and we will score. They tumble it forward but with reckless abandon. It’s hit and hope football. They are relying on lady luck and the footy gods falling in love at first sight whereas the Cats are clinical. The Dees break down into small pieces; miniscule pieces. Tiny droplets. Drips from a rusted spout. This makes them easy to pick apart. Only Oliver seems to remember the plan.

 

The combination of the wet weather and the gloom makes a set of white prominent. Cats fans are all teeth. Smiling, laughing. There’s a goal to a bloke called Miers. He stepped around the defenders like Gene Kelly singin’ in the rain. More teeth. Slaps on backs. The Demons stand around confused. Wasn’t he your man?

 

Ratugolea doesn’t move like a bloke who shattered his leg last year. Constable battles like an ANZAC on the Somme; no fuss, hard as nails, unfussed by consequences of risk taking. The trickle of goals gathers its own momentum. They pile up and pool on the scoreboard and spoil the Demon dream. How did they fall 80 points behind, these Demons?

 

With wet socks and white teeth we stroll to our accommodation up the road. People lark about on the soaked ovals nearby.

 

“Kelly!” one kid yells as he snaps an imaginary goal. The goal of a genius in the making. In the middle of difficulty the Cats seem to have found opportunity. The Demons have just found more difficulty.

 

GEELONG        6.1       7.4       13.4     20.6 (126)
MELBOURNE    2.2       3.4       3.9       6.10 (46)

 

GOALS
Geelong: Rohan 3, Selwood 2, Dahlhaus 2, Hawkins 2, Dangerfield 2, Miers, Kelly, O’Connor, Duncan, Ratugolea, Parfitt, Menegola, Clark, Constable
Melbourne: Melksham 2, Weideman, Lockhart, Viney, Brayshaw

 

BEST
Geelong: Dangerfield, Kelly, Duncan, Dahlhaus, Selwood, Stewart, Constable
Melbourne: Oliver, Brayshaw, Viney, Harmes

 

INJURIES
Geelong: Henry (hamstring)
Melbourne: May (groin)

 

Reports: Nil

 

Umpires: McInerney, Williamson, Wallace 

 

Official crowd: 27,561 at GMHBA Stadium

 

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