For probably the last 8 weeks of the footy season the match between Geelong and St Kilda was hyped as a meeting between titans. Every week past with them unbeaten was ticked off and the days remaining counted down. Last week the hyperbole reached ridiculous levels, with some scribe (incorrectly) claiming this to be the biggest match ever outside the finals.
To be honest I got a weary of all this - not like the media to overdo something, is it? - but I still looked forward to sitting to watch the match, and in fact had a coup[le of mates over for lunch to make day of it.
How often are great expectations disappointed? For all the hype, the reigning premiers went into yesterday's match as firm favourite. Geelong had the score on the board, indisputably one of the greatest sides of all time they came up against St Kilda, perennial losers and in more recent times good looking pretenders. They have taken their game to a new and much tougher level this year, but even those of us who wished otherwise suspected they might get found out when the heat was on.
Amazingly, for one of the very few occasions I can recall, all the hyperbole, the purple prose, the runaway hype and general excitement was matched - if not surpassed - by a classic game of the highest quality that went right down to the wire.
We sat in my lounge room having supped on a roast leg of lamb with all the trimmings, a few beers, as well as the very excellent 1999 Moorilla Estate Cab Sav I'd forgotten was in my wine rack. We were content. When he wasn't trying for our attention Rigby sat quietly at our feet, roused occasionally by our excited cries and occasional invective at the TV screen.
Beside me JV, having tipped Geelong, lived and died with every kick. Both Whisky and I were superficially neutral, though as the game progressed we both found ourselves barracking for the Saints. They were the underdog after all, the challenger taking on the established champion.
The challenger started beautifully and skipped out to a handy lead that over the course of the next few quarters the champion slowly reeled in. 25 points at quarter time, 15 at the half, and 10 with just 30 minutes to go. With about 5 minutes left on the clock Geelong kicked the goal to level the score, at which point they were strong favourites to go on and win a match they had been behind in all day. But it was not to be.
Back and forward the play went, the umpires wisely putting their whistles away to let the game flow and unfold unimpeded. Both teams got to the teeth of goal and were both repulsed, until it seemed a draw might be the most poetic of results. Nobody wanted that though. We'd lived with this contest in our mind for months. To have all that anticipation and bitter contest end in a inconclusive scoreline was against the spirit of the battle.
And so it proved. With a little over a minute on the clock Michael Gardiner soared over the pack to take a great and decisive contested mark 15 metres out from the St Kilda goal. He had been one of the heroes of the day, and his story, like the match, had found some kind of resolution.
He had been the much hyped first round pick many years ago, had become a champion player for the Eagles and played in the grand final loss against the Swans. The margin had been a single point, but when the result was reversed 12 months later he was not in the team. Instead he had been disgraced, a drug user with shady friends, he looked set for the scrap heap. Looking for a last chance and dumped by the Eagles the Saints had picked him up. He slowly rebuilt his career, handy more than dominant, a shadow of the player he had been. This year had been his best in the Saints red, white and black, and yesterday the game he announced himself to the football world again.
Now he lined up to kick the goal that would likely win the match. He had already kicked three opportunist goals. On the ground one of his Geelong opponents was being treated, knocked out in the contest. While he was carried off Gardiner stood there with the ball tucked under his arm. Two minutes had passed since he had marked, and while any score would put them in front a goal would make safe from defeat.
And he kicked it. That was it, pretty much. And epic match played at breakneck speed and with incredible pressure was over, St Kilda by a solitary goal. We always say this, and it rarely works out like this, but this was a game worthy of a grand final. And for once the hype was matched by reality. What a great game, what a great sport.
