Can feline grace win Geelong another premiership?

After Collingwood’s army ants went to work on them in last year’s Preliminary Final, I said Geelong’s time was up. They looked like doomed species that day. I expected them to lie down and become part of the fossil record of great teams.

Catus Geelongus (Extinctus) 2007-2010 AD.

Two Minor Premierships
Three Grand Finals
Two Premierships.

Instead, they win thirteen consecutive games and inflict on Collingwood their only two losses of the season.

“They smashed us,” was Alastair Clarkson’s honest assessment of what the Cats did to his team in the Qualifying Final.

“We were destroyed,” lamented Brad Sewell, the Hawk midfielder caught in the middle with the giblets and flying feathers.

When they have the ball, their tall forwards and the hobbling genius Johnson make you pay: it was difficult to believe they had less of it than the Hawks.

Suddenly commentators and opposition coaches are back to saying the Cats have been the dominant side of the past five years, installing them as premiership favourites.

After failing to live up to their potential in 2006, Geelong’s quest to make amends was recorded in The Mission, a book by journalist Scott Gullan, who had spent 2007 with the club.

An updated version, The Mission 2, was produced in response to the heart-breaking 2008 Grand Final loss and the resurrection of 2009.

Perhaps 2011 is The Mission 3.

How have they defied natural selection? What has changed since last year? Well, not much.

A rookie coach, and the establishment of a few impressive youngsters like Daniel Menzel (alas, now gone), Trent West, Allen Christensen – the Stokes clone with a midfield gene – and Tom Hawkins, who is beginning to show he’s more than just a kid with pedigree and a physique.

Leigh Matthews believes ruckmen win you finals. He may have a point. Brad Ottens is a huge slab of a man who debuted in the same year as another famous brick, the Nokia 5110.

Ottens though has been installed with the applications of a smart phone. He can hold off a wriggling ruckman with one arm, is almost unbeatable in a one-on-one marking contest in front of goal, and is able to get his 200cm frame on its knees to pick up the crumbs.

Chris Scott hasn’t seen a need to greatly alter the side’s playing style.

He was a member of the Brisbane Lions, the team that Geelong surpassed as the modern benchmark, who were not unlike this Cats outfit: big, strong, and skilled.

But Geelong have an extra aesthetic dimension. Watching them dismantle Collingwood in the final round, a love-struck Bruce McAvaney squealed: “They do play a beautiful game!”

Who could ever have imagined such a thing being said of a team that wears hoops – and has players who look like Cameron Ling and James Podsiadly?

But he’s right. Geelong are a beautiful sight to behold. Bulls that can play like butterflies. Josh Hunt is built like a wood chopper yet delivers the ball with exquisite delicacy.

Wait a minute, aren’t the reigning premiers Collingwood, the elite team now?

Yes they are, and to usurp them, Geelong will have to beat them in the grand final.

Unlike Round 24, the Pies will care about the result and be at full strength.

Over the past four years, these two have met in the preliminary final. That won’t happen this time. They will almost certainly meet in the biggest game of all which is, as it should be.

Geelong’s problem is their lack of foot speed and aging defence; weaknesses that Collingwood’s smorgasbord of defensive forwards will be sure to expose.

Incidentally, if Malthouse doesn’t start with Alex Fasolo, the cleanest and most natural kick for goal I’ve seen for sometime, he deserves to be replaced at the year’s end.

But if size, skill and sheer beauty are the keys to winning finals, Geelong should win this premiership in a canter.

Which is just as well because few members of this team of aesthetes are capable of going any faster than that.