I’m going to say what nobody else in the media has the courage to say. In 2007, Geelong were the luckiest team in the AFL. No team will ever be this lucky ever again.
It just so happens that the year the Cats finally unified and rocked up to the battlefield with a cohesive army, the opposition was still in their bunkers. They were either nursing wounds from other battles or had lost the maps which would lead them to war. Hello Fremantle.
This is not a crack at the Cats. They worked hard, did what they had to do and beat everyone they were fixtured against. Kudos to them. What they did was not luck, but what happened to others gave them an extraordinary advantage.
I’ve heard line after line about how Geelong had their mettle tested against the Magpies in that Preliminary Final. Please, god, spare me. Collingwood? A test? You’re kidding, right?
The same team which completely lost form in the second half of the year and made the eight by virtue of the weak teams below? The same team that crumbled as soon as the Crows put the tiniest bit of acid on them in Round 22 – when a top four berth was on the line? Surely you jest.
The Pies were solid that night and engaged in a really good slugfest. I enjoyed watching it – riveting stuff from a physical perspective. But it wasn’t Carlton-Essendon in 1999 or Port Adelaide-St Kilda in 2004. Equally enjoyable to watch? Maybe, but as an arm wrestle only, not an exhibition.
I’ll make a call here: every premier from 1999 to 2006, save perhaps, for Sydney in 2005, would have probably nailed Geelong last year. In the current euphoria and collective masturbation that’s going on over the Cats and how they, as unbackable $3 favourites, will waltz to a second flag, I urge some perspective.
Geelong are the 2007 premiers; nobody can deny them that glory, take it away, nor diminish its value. They deserved all the accolades both team and individual that came their way. They earned it all. I am not suggesting otherwise.
However, what I am saying is that if you dig a little deeper, you will find that Geelong played well; well enough to stay clear of a pack which did everything but play quality football.
Every team expected to challenge failed, and for quite obvious reasons. Geelong didn’t falter and that’s why there’s a trophy in their cabinet. Last man standing.
Of the 2007 post-finals top four, only Collingwood made the top eight in 2006 – and they were predicted by many critics to fall out of contention. Geelong, Port and North Melbourne were expected to finish no higher than, say, seventh.
Why? Because their lists were all choc-full of kids who hadn’t yet made the grade, except for Geelong. The Cats did have the list; they’d proven it in 2004 and 2005, and hadn’t made wholesale changes like Port over the same period. It was just assumed that the ill-disciplined Cats of 2006 weren’t going to shake their ways. They did.
In any other year, that would have put them ‘thereabouts’. But in 2007, the teams expected to challenge – West Coast, Sydney, St Kilda, Adelaide, Fremantle and the Western Bulldogs – did something inexplicable. They all tripped up.
Not one of them, not two of them. All six of them. Throw in Melbourne, who competed in three successive finals’ series, and you’ve got seven teams who finished ridiculously below their pre-season ambition.
The one who disappointed the most was Fremantle. They had no excuses for playing as badly as they did. 2008 is an enormous year for the Dockers; no wonder the bookies are keeping them safe.
Melbourne, St Kilda, Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs had their lists trashed by injury. Trashed. St Kilda had 25 fit players on their whole list at one point; how they recovered from 4-7 to finish with a better than 50 per cent record and still have 1/3rd of their list on crutches, I’ll never know.
Like the Saints, the others didn’t just have ‘injury worries’. They ended up having to build mini-hospitals at training. To put it mildly, West Coast losing Kerr, Judd and Cousins – perhaps three of the best four players in the competition – looked like a minor hiccup compared to what the others went through.
Geelong should know. They had an injury list which trashed their 2006 season.
Like the Cats of that vintage, there was no way those teams could compete. However, there does come a point where it’s not just luck, and soft-tissue injuries move further away from the realm of bad fortune to that of science.
To their eternal credit, Geelong saw they had a problem, and fixed it. Their injury run was perfect, save for a brief blemish with Matthew Egan.
Rodney Eade must look at his Dogs and be thinking he’s in exactly the same position as Bomber Thompson last year. The only difference is that while Geelong spent their 2007 summer investing in people who could reduce injuries, the Dogs did the opposite 12 months later and haemorrhaged staff. It could be a critical issue if Eade wants to keep his job, as this column discussed last week.
Sydney was a victim of expectation; they didn’t really fail in any way, it’s just that the game has moved past Dad’s Army. They will need a Geelong-esq injury run just to make the eight. Barry Hall and Tadgh Kennelly in particular must stay fit; ask Cat fans how important Cam Mooney and Darren Milburn are, and you’ll see why the Swans need this pair.
On top of the pile – but underneath the most mud – sat West Coast. Sans drama, they probably would have won it all. They could have monstered the league. But we’ll never know; Judd and Cousins are never coming back.
However, if the troubles are behind them, and I think much of it might be, they will crack the top four. They have an unbelievable midfield depth which has been totally forgotten about.
Call me crazy, but I think they can still win it this year. So many players who nearly took the next step last year will get a fair dinkum chance to do it in 2008. They are as good a chance as anyone.
Be that as it may, history stays as is. Somebody had to win it in 2007 – and it might as well have been the Cats. It sure as hell couldn’t have been Port Adelaide, still 3-4 years short of their peak cycle, and only just recovering from losing so many of their 2001-05 stars.
If Geelong were lucky to win it, the Power would have totally fluked it. Scary to think they were just four quarters away. They even toppled the Cats just weeks earlier. Scary indeed…
In a nutshell, it boils down to this. In 2007, the Cats won without a true challenger. In 2008, the contenders will re-emerge from hiding.
If they can make it back-to-back, we’ll get a much better gauge of how strong their list really is, and whether it’s as good as their frenzied fans and the hyperbolic press suggest.
But can they do it without the Steven Bradbury run?
Good teams can pinch a flag, but only great teams – unless you have access to Darren Jarman – can win them twice.
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