The Geelong Cats leapt high with a near perfect season this year, but in in yesterday's Grand Final they came up empty handed, beaten by a team wearing mud brown and urine yellow -- an ignoble end to what Cats fans hoped would be a Cats dynasty.
As the Real Footy site sums up, it was a case of 'Kitty Kitty Bang-Bang.'
It was hard-fought and physical -- a great Final played in front of over 100,000 pople in the MCG, and millions more worldwide -- a game was won in Hawthorn's half-back line, reflected in the man-of-the-match award to Hawthorn's half-back flank 'general' Luke Hodge. Fine work here time and again snuffed out the near continuous Geelong attacks -- in the second quarter Geelong kicked just 1 goal and 9 behinds; in the third quarter (often called the "championship quarter") Geelong entered the 'inside 50' scoring arc so many times they almost set up camp, but for all that dominance they could put up only nine scoring shots to Hawthorn's eight (and of those Hawthorn goaled five times; Geelong just three).
In the end, Geelong won everywhere but on the scoreboard. Hawthorn did what they had to do, starting with those annoying bastards on their half-back line, and in the end they ensured Geelong couldn't.
Bugger.
UPDATE: "Funny things can happen in grand finals," said Geelong coach Mark Thompson after this one. "It certainly happened today. There's no certainties in this business, and we were beaten by a better team on the day."
Pre-match planning wasn't the issue, Thompson said. It was the on-field execution.
"Some of the things we planned for worked, and some of the things that we planned for weren't implemented consistently enough over the day."
Thompson said he was worried that the players thought the game was simply going to happen, even after a second term that produced 1.9. While he didn't believe they felt the pressure, he suspected they may have expected the torrent of behinds in the second quarter to turn magically into goals.
"You know, that's just wrong. To win premierships, you need to do everything right, and Hawthorn was absolutely spectacular today."
Yes, they were. The bastards.
5 comments:
Oh dear, that is a shame Peter.
Better luck for these chaps next year, but rather a disappointment.
millions more worldwide ? I did not know that Australia was "worldwide". ))))
Anon
New Zealand, United Kingdom, Ireland, Japan, Hong Kong, USA are not part of Australia. You need to learn some geography.
LGM
Oh ya, and about 100 people watched it in each of these countries. ))) Aussie ex-pats mainly.
Anon
You are not very bright. Better to give up before you really make a complete fool of yourself.
LGM
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