AUSTRALIAN RULES: AFL FINAL: Geelong 12 - 8 (80) St Kilda 9 - 14 (68)A VICTORY for Geelong Cats – their second AFL Premiership in three years – in a titanic Grand Final here on Saturday in wet and windy weather straight out of Limerick.
The bald statistics – and boy, does Aussie Rules love its stats – revealed the star of the game was baldy Paul Chapman, who won the coveted Norm Smith Medal as man of the match.
Chapman, despite a hamstring injury, kicked a crucial late goal when all around were stumbling and fumbling.
After grasping the rules, you expected high, hanging kicks for tall forwards to take soaring marks somewhere above the Melbourne skyline, interspersed with gratuitous shoulder charges and bumps in a macho display of “my biceps look bigger in this singlet than yours”.
But the conditions meant an almighty, raw-boned scrap for loose, slippery ball on the deck; contested possessions like kids on a sugar rush around a toy box in combative search of their favourite fire truck. This was survival of the fittest.
The stats also showed that St Kilda, chasing their second flag, could not shoot straight, with several kicks at goal drifting wide, crucial misses as the Saints, the dominant force in the AFL all season, failed to seize one amazing game of footy in front of a 100,000 crowd. The tears of St Kilda’s long-suffering supporters have at least replenished parched Victorian dams.
This is some venue. On the list of sporting events to see before you die, put the AFL Grand Final down alongside the traditional St Stephen’s Day cricket Test at the big “G”. The portrait galleries in the hallowed corridors are shared between great cricketers in baggy greens and AFL legends in club colours. Bradman meets Barassi.
It was madness in the Geelong dressingroom after the game. A media pass gave you no right-of- way over the little autograph hunters ducking through bouncers’ legs to get to their heroes.
Others had every reason to be there, from Geelong AFL Hall of Fame members to children of the modern gods. One wore “Daddy” on her replica jersey and was delicately scooped out of the crowd by daddy, like actress Fay Wray lifted from the jungle by King Kong.
Time to sniff out some Irish ancestry amid the dressingroom liniment. Cats full-back Matthew Scarlett, recognised as the best in the business, is a dead ringer for Munster’s Doug Howlett, which was about as close as I got to an Irish link. “Actually my late grandmother May Scarlett was Irish,” said Scarlett. Where from? “Haven’t a clue, mate.”
With Irishman Marty Clarke of AFL side Collingwood the latest to head home from Australia, perhaps I could poach some Aussies to play in Ireland.
“Me play Gaelic football? I can barely play AFL any more. I am knackered,” said victorious Geelong captain Tom Harley.
AFL clubs are looking closely at further Irish recruitments. Sydney Swans coach Paul Roos, who was in Dublin recently to watch his former charge Tadhg Kennelly win an All-Ireland, said: “You realise how far it is and how young they are when they come. It takes a special guy to leave his country and make a commitment,” said Roos.
It takes special guys to win a Grand Final and Geelong’s victory makes them a special Footy team. They shared the glory yesterday with their fans, comparing hangovers and signing autographs. Think Munster rugby and you understand Geelong footy.
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