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Woody Allen once famously said that a baseball game is simply a nervous breakdown divided into nine innings. Saturday afternoon at the MCG was an addendum to that thought, with the Eagles demonstrating that one can also lose their mind in the space of four error-ridden, panic-stricken quarters of overwhelmed Australian football.
Three weeks ago the Eagles led Hawthorn by 50 points at three-quarter time of the qualifying final. They looked bigger, stronger, faster and fitter than a Hawthorn outfit that seemed to finally be showing its age.
West Coast pulverised the Hawks that day and they did it without Matthew Priddis, their best player. Over the past three weeks not much changed in the bodies of the players that took the field that Friday night in Perth, but evidently plenty changed in their minds.
Mental fortitude is often overrated in sports – a convenient pick-it-off-the-shelf narrative device we like to employ for cinematic purposes. We imagine that the Cats of recent vintage used the trauma of 2008 to propel themselves to outlast the Saints the following year. In reality, they won because they were playing a team that fielded Andrew McQualter, Raphael Clarke, Clinton Jones and Farren Ray.
The past two grand finals have been evidence to the contrary though, giving credence to the idea that premierships can be won and lost between the ears. The Hawks bullied the Swans into submission last year, getting inside their heads to the point where tough nut Dan Hanneberry was timidly pulling out of contests.
The Eagles’ capitulation on Saturday was even more impressive. Hawthorn didn’t need to bludgeon West Coast like they bludgeoned Sydney – the Eagles were already walking towards the cliff on their own accord and the Hawks just gave them a deft, subtle prod off the edge.
Fittingly, the first disaster was committed by Jack ‘Ballantyne for a day’ Darling, who killed any sense of momentum from the Eagles’ opening goal by mindlessly giving away a 50-metre penalty to Brian Lake that led to a Cyril Rioli major.
Darling’s game was like a sad Russian novel – a series of brutal, self-inflicted missteps, each one more damning than the one that preceded it. By the time Darling spilt an uncontested chest mark running into an open goal in the third quarter, destroying the final chance of a West Coast comeback in the process, you just had to smile and nod your head in bemusement.
Darling can find solace in the fact that he has many friends who will share his embarrassment. The Sharrod Wellingham renaissance always felt too surreal to be sustainable and the hammer finally dropped on the worst day of all. Wellingham’s gutless refusal to go back with the flight in the third quarter should be enough for Heath Grundy to give him a consoling phone call later this week.
The other stars weren’t much better. Depending on whether you attribute the blame to him or his teammates, Josh Kennedy spent Saturday starring in one of two Coen brothers’ films – “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” or “The Man Who Wasn’t There”.
Luke Shuey made decisions with the composure of a drunk, agitated Donald Trump, failing to give two handballs inside 50 that would have led to almost certain goals. Priddis spent the day looking like a frightened cat, often getting his hands to the ball at stoppages but lacking the conviction to use it with purpose. He’s a star, but he’s not Sam Mitchell.
After inspirational Hawthorn skipper Luke Hodge kicked one of the great grand final goals in the second quarter, minutes later his West Coast counterpart had a chance to wrestle back momentum for his team with a regulation set shot. Shannon Hurn looked petrified, and perhaps inevitably for the purposes of symbolism, his shot hit the post.
Whether it was the spectre of Hawthorn, the reality of Hawthorn, or their own self-doubt, the Eagles had already lost the game before they stepped onto the field. They were rattled and only a handful of players – Andrew Gaff, Jeremy McGovern and Brad Sheppard are the only ones that spring to mind – could hold their heads high at the final siren. The errors became more and more incomprehensible as the game progressed, growing to resemble a Three Stooges skit.
There was Will Schofield’s dropped mark on the back flank immediately followed by a tame, almost sad toe-poke out of bounds on the full. Then Josh Hill outnumbered Lake three on one in the goal square and somehow contrived to kick it into Lake’s hands. Even Hill managed a laugh at that one.
The Eagles shouldn’t lose sight of the reality that their season was a raging success. They were mid-table fodder entering the season and done for the year after Round 1. Their rejuvenation was as unprecedented as it was impressive. And yet, they finish the year as a team who played as badly as one can play on the big day, remarkably flattered by a 46-point final margin.
West Coast is a team with youth that should continue to improve. But football history is littered with teams that ‘should’ have continued to improve. Contention is finite – just ask the last West Coast team that made a grand final.
The future may be kinder to them (it ‘should’ be) but for now the Eagles go down in history alongside the 2000 Demons, the 2003 Magpies and the 2007 Power – teams that served as nothing but the mats upon which greatness dusted its feet.