As the saying goes, “all good things must come to an end”.
One of the greatest dynasties in modern AFL history has come to an end, with the Geelong Cats’ 48-point loss to Collingwood on Friday night seeing the club eliminated from finals contention for the first time since 2006.
It was an era which saw the Cats win three premierships as well as produce numerous All-Australians, three Norm Smith Medallists, two Brownlow Medallists, one Rising Star Award and a sustained long period of on-field success.
The origin of this era of dominance can be traced way back to 2006 when then-coach Mark Thompson survived a board meeting which was conducted in the wake of the club’s dismal season. The Cats finished 10th after being touted as a serious contender for the premiership, on the back of a victorious pre-season campaign.
Then, five games into the 2007 season, the Cats were in trouble at 2-3 and had just suffered a 16-point loss to North Melbourne in which current captain Joel Selwood was nominated for (and eventually won) the AFL Rising Star Award.
However, a brutal honesty session conducted by Paul Chapman, in which the players’ commitment and the club’s culture of underachievement came into question, would prove the catalyst for what would ultimately become one of the greatest dynasties in modern AFL history.
Their first outing since that session saw the club hand Richmond a 157-point humiliation. The rest, as they say, is history.
The Cats would win their next 14 games after that Richmond mauling to all but wrap up the minor premiership by Round 19, and eventually finish three games clear of joint-second placed Port Adelaide and the West Coast Eagles.
Despite having not won the premiership since 1963, and suffering several grand final defeats in the intervention, the Cats entered September as red hot flag favourites and thrashed the Kangaroos, who had handed them that season-turning loss way back in Round 5, by 106 points in the qualifying final.
After the week off, the Cats then faced Collingwood in the preliminary final and won by just five points in front of over 98,000 fans to advance to their first grand final since 1995.
In the lead-up to that match, the Cats had nine players selected in the All-Australian team: Matthew Scarlett, Darren Milburn, Matthew Egan, Jimmy Bartel, Steve Johnson, Cameron Mooney, Gary Ablett Jr, Joel Corey and Cameron Ling.
Before the Cats geared up for their first grand final in 12 years, the club had further reason to celebrate with Bartel winning the AFL’s highest individual honour, the Brownlow Medal, polling 29 votes.
Although Port Adelaide had just won the premiership three years earlier, the Cats’ dominant form all season saw them enter as massive favourites.
True to form, the Cats didn’t just overcome their 44-year premiership drought, they also did it in devastating fashion, handing the Power the worst grand final defeat in history with a 119-point demolition.
Forward Steve Johnson, who was suspended by the club for five matches at the beginning of the season for public drunkenness during the off-season, capped off his redemption with the Norm Smith Medal for best-on-ground.
The club then compiled one of the most dominant home-and-away seasons the following year, finishing minor premiers with 21 wins and just one loss (against Collingwood by 86 points), and four games clear of second-placed Hawthorn.
However, their regular season dominance would account to nothing when they suffered an upset 26-point loss to the Hawks in the grand final. The defeat would not only sting the playing list for the off-season that followed, but also in the ensuring years.
The Cats rebounded in 2009 to capture the premiership following a dramatic and tense grand final victory over St Kilda, which had won its first 19 matches of the season en route to its first minor premiership since 1997.
This grand final victory will be remembered mostly by Cats fans for this famous piece of play with less than five minutes to go, when the game was in the balance:
Forward Paul Chapman, who has just retired from the AFL after 280 games, won the Norm Smith Medal for his role in the match-winning play in which he kicked the goal to put the Cats six points up after scores had been locked at 68-all in red time.
In the week leading up to that match, Gary Ablett Jr would achieve what his equally famous father couldn’t and that was to claim the Brownlow Medal.
Speculation that he would join the newly-formed Gold Coast Suns ahead of its entry into the AFL in 2011 then clouded the club’s 2010 campaign, which had no adverse effect as the club finished second on the ladder before losing to eventual premiers Collingwood by 41 points in the preliminary final.
Shortly after their failure to reach a fourth consecutive grand final, every Cats fan’s worst fears were confirmed when Ablett signed a five-year deal to join the Suns, where he would later win a second Brownlow Medal.
That was then followed by Mark Thompson quitting his post as coach after a decade, citing burnout. He was replaced by Chris Scott, who upon his appointment declared that the club “were in a position to contend in 2011”.
The departures of Thompson and Ablett did the Cats’ premiership chances no harm; in fact, Scott won the first 13 matches of his career as the Cats romped to another second-place finish, and a third flag in five years.
They won this premiership by defeating Collingwood for a third time in the year, having defeated them twice during the regular season. Jimmy Bartel won the Norm Smith Medal for his 26 disposals and three goals.
Twelve different players became three-time Geelong premiership players after that victory: namely Cameron Ling, Jimmy Bartel, Andrew Mackie, Brad Ottens, James Kelly, Joel Selwood, Steve Johnson, Matthew Scarlett, Paul Chapman, David Wojcinski and Corey Enright.
The 2012 season would see the Cats finish sixth at the end of the regular season before losing to Fremantle in an elimination final at the MCG; it was to be the club’s worst result in a finals series since 2000.
Twelve months later, the club would finish second on the ladder only behind the all-conquering Hawks, whom the Cats defeated twice during the regular season. It was then I suggested that the Cats’ odd-year dynasty could continue, the club having won premierships in 2007, 2009 and 2011.
However, a shock loss to Fremantle in the first ever qualifying final to be held at Simonds Stadium would put the Cats on the back foot for the remainder of the finals series, and after defeating Port Adelaide in the semi-finals, the club would go down to eventual premiers the Hawks by just five points in the preliminary final.
That loss saw the Cats’ dominance of the Hawks, which was initiated by a pact made by Paul Chapman that the club “should never lose to Hawthorn again”, come to an end after eleven consecutive victories against their bitter rivals, and ended their hopes of a fourth flag in seven years.
2014 saw the Cats finish in the top three once again, before the club became just the third club since the current finals system was implemented in 2000 to crash out of the finals in straight sets by way of losses to Hawthorn and North Melbourne.
Their limp exit from September last year led to many believing that the Cats’ golden era, during which they achieved a lot both on team and individual fronts, would come to an end sooner rather than later.
Indeed, the Cats would start this season poorly, dropping their first two games of a season for the first time since 2004 to be sitting last on the ladder after as many rounds.
However, four straight wins between Rounds 16 and 19 would see the club enter the eight for the first time in the season before falling back out of it after a 36-point loss to Hawthorn in Round 20.
A draw against St Kilda last week then put the club’s finals hopes and premiership dynasty on life support, before Friday night’s disappointing 48-point loss to Collingwood officially extinguished both of these.
It means that, for the first time since 2006, the Geelong Cats will miss the finals, and the club will face some tough decisions as many of their players, in particular captain Joel Selwood, ponder a rare September holiday.
Premiership stalwarts such as Steve Johnson, Jimmy Bartel, James Kelly and Corey Enright, among others, may have played their final ever AFL games at the MCG, with their futures set to be sorted out after the club’s final game of the season against the Adelaide Crows at Simonds Stadium next Saturday.
Coach Chris Scott has promised a thorough review of the club’s ageing playing list, as the club faces the possibility of a long and painful rebuild.
“It’s going to be brutal. I feel so bad because I know it is difficult for them,” Scott said after the loss to the Magpies on Friday night.
“I’ve heard people say that you should not get too emotionally attached, and on some levels the head coach has to be a little bit removed, but I don’t mind saying publicly I love them. Some of them I played against, and I can’t think of people in the game that I respect more.”
Next week’s game against the Crows, which could have decided which club gets into the finals had the Cats won against the Magpies, is now effectively a dead rubber with the Crows all but guaranteed finals for just the second time since 2009.
It could also be the final ever AFL game the aforementioned players could play, without any of them ever knowing it. Only four Cats have officially retired: Brad Hartman, James Toohey, Hamish McIntosh and Jared Rivers, though neither of them took part in any of the club’s 2007, 2009 or 2011 premierships.
Thus, with only one match left to play this season, it’s very clear that the Geelong Cats will have to make some tough decisions in regards to their playing list, and their position in the draft, if they are to return to the finals in 2016 and rebuild another dynasty of success.
But for now, let’s take a moment to reflect on what has been, without a doubt, one of the most glorious eras not only in the history of the Geelong Football Club, but also possibly in modern AFL history.
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