Enough wailing and gnashing of teeth, I’m a sports writer, damn it, and this Grand Final will be reviewed, and you will be able to read it. With that in mind, I’m enormously indebted to my padwan, Lukey T, a Cats fan, for writing it up from the Sleepy Hollow point of view. I’ve put his stuff together with my stuff, and it kind of works (Luke, I owe you another beer).
* *
Luke: St Kilda stunned the pundits with a near flawless season, and all of a sudden they deserved the flag. They had everything they needed: a young squad, a game plan that showed no obvious weaknesses and, scariest of all for a Cats fan, an unshakable belief that they could, nay would, do it. It seemed my team was going to have to return to the rank of bridesmaid after a brief bask in the sun. A near-perfect St Kilda season was followed by a solid and determined season from Geelong, which in turn was followed by daylight, then every other team in the competition. As such, at the start of the last week in September the Grand Final everyone wanted to see was ready to be played out.
At 2:30 on the 26th of September 2009, one of the most anticipated Grand Finals in living memory got underway. Minutes later, the Cats were on the board with a few goals and the Saints looked anything but composed. Uncharacteristic mistakes were made, turnovers were punished and I dared to hope again. And then, just like that, the Saints steadied, found composure and wiped away the deficit to lead by a couple of points at the first break. This old Cats fan saw our chance disappearing
Juzzy: When you’ve known drought like Saints fans have, when you’ve lived through the idiocy of the Tim Watson experiment, followed by the Blighty adventure, followed by years of weak-arsed Management 101 corporate double-speak from a control freak whose only qualification was President’s Mate, you know better than to be confident when you’re in front.
Yeah sure, I screamed my lungs out as Lenny and Luke went in head-first yet again, but when Milne missed that dribbler, and Schneider missed from close in, I started to shake. Geelong had been there and lost just twelve months ago; they knew about nerves and pressure, and they knew about pain, and they were going to run themselves to death to avoid feeling it again.
The second quarter was all ours, and we should have had the flag in the bag by half time. But clangers (Hi, Zac/Milney/Schneids) cost us dearly, and kept the Catters in it. We were going to have to continue to dominate and stop making dumb mistakes in the second half, and hope that Geelong started getting tired. Yeah, right.
(Luke’s next sentence was “Then something strange happened.” I’m sorry, but it wasn’t all that strange.)
Luke: Geelong seemed to remember the pain and held on. The Saints led at every change, but the Cats stayed with them. The margin hovered around one point for most of the closing stages as Saints fans prayed for a case of deja vu. And then, in a moment to rival John Eales’ penalty kick at Carisbrook, Cathy's run in Sydney or Warney's leg break to Gatting at Old Trafford, Chappy gathered and snapped one of his characteristic impossible goals to put the Cats ahead by a kick in the final stages. Minutes later a point by Max Rooke gave the Cats the breathing space of two kicks which turned out to be insurmountable. About two minutes later the final siren sounded. For the first time in about 20 minute I drew breath and the joy set in. The Cats had managed to hold on, come from behind and grind a win out of probably the best grand final contest in years.
Juzzy: The second half was agony; clinging to a lead that just wasn’t enough, watching kicks drop short and tackles shrugged off, I consoled myself with screaming really really loudly, as if the boys could hear me and my voice, MY VOICE, would wake them up and drag us home. I don’t remember the details too clearly, or who did what and when, and I sure as shit don’t remember the siren. I hid in a corner of the bar and cried a bit, and I walked home in the rain.
Luke: While I remain endlessly proud of my team, I pass this on to Saints fans. In an effort to divine what may be in store for your team next year, take the time to study the face of Gary Ablett as he sat on the MCG after the final siren in the 2008 Grand Final. He displayed a pain felt in the heart of every player who had been robbed of the flag that they richly deserved last year. That feeling was bottled, stored and used by all the Cats on the park yesterday and the end result had its roots in that feeling. Now look at the face of your skipper and every other battered, bruised and gallant Saint who played yesterday. That look. It's there.
* *
Juzzy: I spent most of a column bagging Cadel Evans recently, so I guess I have to stand up and cop one in the moosh. He’s World Road Champion, and boo-rah to him. He raced aggressively for once, and look where it got him. It would be churlish of me to add that it may have made a difference having a team around him who didn’t hate his guts…
* *
NRL Preliminary Final by Scotty:
The combatants for the NRL Grand Final are now decided, with Melbourne winning through to a fourth straight season decider and facing this season’s revelation in Parramatta. Ten weeks out from the finals Parra were looking the wooden spoon dead in the eye, yet dug themselves out of the hole they were in and started winning. They made the finals and have since disposed of St George, Gold Coast and Canterbury in the meantime, which is no mean feat. It is also the first time a team outside the Top Four has made it to a Grand Final let alone the team that barely scraped into the finals in eighth position.
Melbourne cruised into the Grannie with a big win over Brisbane at Sponsor Dome on Saturday night. Scoring early tries through Inglis and Slater, the Storm dominated and never let Brisbane into the game. Sitting in the comfort of the Medallion Club part of the Dome watching the spectacle was nice, but seeing such a one-sided game, with especially poor defence from one of the teams, was disappointing considering it was such a high stakes match.
The end result was a 40-10 drubbing handed out by the Storm who once again showed why they are the competition’s benchmark club. They’ve made it to the big day four times in a row now for only one victory so I’m sure they have all the motivation in the world to win and after last year’s disaster (40-0 loss to the repugnant Manly) to make a good show of it.
Don’t take this down to the TAB but: Parramatta to do what they do best year in, year out and choke, with Storm to (hahaha pardon the pun) storm home with a hefty victory.
* *
So, um, the season’s over. Juzzy twiddles his thumbs. Twiddle, Juzzy, twiddle! It’s a couple of months until there’s any real cricket and I don’t have Foxtel, so I’m casting wildly about for some sport to write up. I’ve been looking through the listings for One HD, and that seems to be all about NASCAR and Poker. Try as I might, I can’t get excited about netball; and Lawn Bowls, I’m sorry, is just fucking dull. Even if basketball were televised anywhere I refuse to watch it, and swimmers can go fuck themselves, then go set themselves on fire while they watch tennis players do the same.
There are so many Leagues and Championships and Cups in Football I wouldn’t know where to start. Grid Iron is fun, but it always leaves a nasty taste in my mouth when I think about how much money is invested in High School teams. Motor racing is an acquired taste, I’ve bored everybody’s tits off with cycling, and Xtreme Olympics is just too dude-ical for this old man.
Any suggestions for a sport to follow, even if it’s local park cricket, will be gratefully considered and maybe even accepted. Otherwise, I’m going to invent a sport, and lovelywife can tell you how well it goes when I invent things. Die, evil robot, DIE!!!!
!joomlacomment 4.0 Copyright (C) 2009 Compojoom.com . All rights reserved."
| < Prev |
|---|
