AFL Grand Final 2022: All the reaction and fallout from Geelong’s big win over Sydney
Chris Scott has lifted the lid on a meeting with senior players after Geelong’s preliminary final loss last year that decided his fortunes as Cats coach.
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Dual premiership coach Chris Scott has revealed he was prepared to walk away from his job at Geelong last year as he questioned whether he had the players’ backing in the wake of an 83-point preliminary final demolition.
Scott has been hailed as one of the great coaches of the modern era after his second premiership, but said he had pondered if he was the right man for the job after the final fadeout 2021.
Asked on Fox Footy’s AFL360 if he would have considered quitting if senior players hadn’t backed him in a post-season meeting, he made clear it was an option.
“You have put me on the spot. It’s a good time to get me after a few drinks. Yeah, I will be honest. I did (think about it). I made it hard for them. I said, if you have any doubt at all you have to tell me.
“It was a bigger group than just Joel (Selwood) and Pat (Dangerfield) and I have done a version of that (meeting) almost every year, but at the end of ’21 in particular they were emphatic and the support was the basis of my drive in 2022. If they had have hesitated …” Scott said.
GRAND FINAL FALLOUT: HOW THE CATS CELEBRATED
Scott said the post-season discussion centred on whether the club could improve despite missing the premiership again.
In the end the Cats turned over 16 football staff and were reinvigorated as they surged to a premiership on a 16-match winning streak.
“(It was) whether we could do it, and if we couldn’t we needed to change tack and maybe part of that change involved me,” Scott said.
“The part that gave me the most confidence was when I spoke to our players. It reminded me of 2010. Because I was really nervous and apprehensive coming to Geelong as a 34-year-old coach, but in the first month when I spoke to the players they gave me a sense of calm that came from their drive and commitment.
“I saw the same thing at the end of 2021. Patty and Joel were certain they could play better in 2022 than 2021, and they delivered in spades.”
By the numbers: Why Geelong’s critics have nothing
– Glenn McFarlane
Geelong’s cherished 10th VFL-AFL premiership — its first flag in 4012 days — has elevated the game’s second oldest entity into the greatest club of the 21st century to date.
A modern marvel bucking all of footy’s equalisation measures.
With the grand final making a stunning return to its rightful home at the MCG for the first time since 2019, the Cats blew apart Sydney’s pressure gauge with ruthless efficiency as a sea of blue and white celebrated one of the club’s most clinical premiership triumphs.
Geelong is the antithesis of what modern AFL football is meant to be. This extraordinary football club — which famously went 44 years without a flag before that 2007 drought-breaker — has now won four premierships in the past 15 years, with perhaps a hint of more.
If we draw a line on the 21st century to date — which takes in the 2001 season to now — the Cats have won 349 games out of a possible 522.
That’s 41 more victories — the equivalent of two and a bit seasons — than the next best side, Sydney, and the four flags since 2001 brings them equal to Hawthorn during that time.
Geelong has unashamedly defied the equalisation methods of the AFL — in terms of age, list profile, the availability of first round picks and the belief that clubs have to go backwards sometimes to go forwards.
The Cats have steadfastly refused to go backwards, with a stated ambition that they would approach every season with the premiership fire burning. It remains ablaze, even if this Grand Final produced the oldest team to ever play in a VFL-AFL match dating back to 1897 at an average age of 28.6 years.
At times, they have been the victims of their own success, copping unfair criticism for contending but falling just short of silverware on a number of occasions. Those critics are silent right now.
The storylines are everywhere you looked — from the superstars to the one-time rookies graduating with honours.
Good coaches coach; great coaches evolve, and that’s precisely what Chris Scott has done.
He won a premiership as a coach in his first season in 2011. It seems incongruous some footy fans — even a few of the blue and white persuasion — have questioned his role in the years since, saying he had been “gifted” a premiership outfit almost from the outset.
Nothing could be further from the truth, as this spectacular 2022 season has underpinned.
Scott modified the game plan — taking the Cats from the 18th go- forward team last season to one of the most attacking and watchable sides this season — just as he changed up the roles of key players, put faith in some fresh faces and maintained his trust in the group.
This grand final success was Scott’s 200th victory as a coach — only the 16th coach in VFL-AFL history to reach that mark — and he has joined Reg Hickey (three flags) and Mark Thompson (two finals) as the only multiple premiership coaches in Geelong’s VFL-AFL history.
Even the late, great Bobby Davis couldn’t manage a second flag after his 1963 triumph and he would have thought that this Cats’ team was “fair dinkum unbelievable”.
Was it any wonder the normally-steely resolve of Scott buckled a little, with a few tears, just before the final siren.
It was fitting that Joel Selwood can finally add ‘premiership captain’ to his swelling CV in the same year he passed Carlton great Stephen Kernahan as the longest-serving skipper in the history of the game.
He won his first three flags in his first five seasons; this fourth one has taken him an extra 11 years. That’s why it means so much to him now.
His last-term goal brought out the emotions in his record-breaking 40th final, producing the same sort of response and respect from the crowd after the siren as when he ran out carrying Gary Ablett Jr’s son Levi.
“They are so hard to win,” Selwood said on Channel 7. “Every side says it, but we deserved this.
“We don’t apologise for being up there challenging every year.
“It’s coming home, where it belongs.”
Isaac Smith, too, is now a four-time premiership player, adding yet another medal to the ones he claimed at Hawthorn from 2013-15.
Better still, he has a Norm Smith Medal to go with it, validating his decision to head down the highway at the end of the 2020 season.
Patrick Dangerfield had never won a premiership at any level of competition — Anglesea, Geelong Falcons, Adelaide and even Geelong — before this match. Now he is a premiership player after 303 games.
‘Danger’ has won so many medals in his celebrated career, but none of them would mean as much as the one that dangled around his neck from 5.30pm onwards on Saturday.
“This is Everest; this is the pinnacle,” he said.
The Guthrie brothers — Cam and Zach — shared their premiership joy together, becoming the fourth set of Geelong siblings to play in the same premiership side, and the first since Gary and Nathan Ablett back in 2007.
Tyson Stengle’s fairytale is one for the ages. He kicked four goals in the grand final, culminating a remarkable first year at Geelong after his AFL career looked over when he was sacked by the Crows over a series of off-field incidents.
The Cats had two Irishmen in their 2022 premiership team – Zach Tuohy in his 250th game and Mark O’Connor, who came into the starting 22 after the heartbreaking late withdrawal of Max Holmes.
Brandon Parfitt came in as the sub and kicked a last-term goal as Sam De Koning capped off his stunning year with the first goal of his AFL career on the grandest stage.
Ten of the premiership 23 from this systematic premiership win — more in the manner of the 2007 triumph rather than the harder-fought 2009 and 2011 ones — are on the other side of 30 years of age.
Selwood and Hawkins are 34, Smith is 33, Dangerfield and Tuohy are 32, while Mark Blicavs, Cam Guthrie, Mitch Duncan, Gary Rohan and Rhys Stanley are no longer in their twenties, but all played significant roles in this grand victory.
Is anyone silly enough to write the Cats off in 2023? Given what happened this year, you wouldn’t dare!
‘I don’t give a s***’: Maligned Cat has last laugh
Geelong premiership forward Gary Rohan says he couldn’t give a ‘s***’ about being cast at times as a finals whipping boy, saying the 2022 premiership medal around his neck was all that he cared about.
Rohan has suffered his share of pain across his career, with his performances in three losing grand finals drawing external criticism.
But the 31-year-old said the support of coach Chris Scott and his teammates was all that he cared about, stressing he has never cared about what others might say about him.
“I don’t give a s*** about that, to be honest,” Rohan said of the criticism he has had to endure throughout much of his 177-game, 13-season career at Sydney and now Geelong.
“I cop it on the chin and keep moving forward. They know what I can do within the four walls at the Cats, and that’s the main thing.
“My role changes each week. Some games I can be free and go up on the ball, and some days I am a bit of a lockdown (player) like I did today on ‘Ramps’ (Dane Rampe).
“No one outside (the club) gets to see that, but the boys know and they get around me.”
Rohan has endured his share of grand final heartbreak with three losses (with Sydney in 2014 and 2016 and with Geelong in 2020) and a sickening broken leg costing him another appearance with the Swans in 2012.
He went into this year’s finals series under the spotlight, but said the support of his coach and his teammates had kept him focused.
He produced a big performance against Collingwood in the qualifying final, kicking three goals and handing off the sealer to Max Holmes, while also kicking two goals in the preliminary final against Brisbane.
He was asked to play a defensive role on his former teammate Dane Rampe in the grand final, having seven disposals and kicking a behind in the Cats’ 81-point flogging of his former side.
Rohan conceded he had to deal with a lot over the years, but said the pain was worth it to celebrate this success with his family and friends.
“I’ve been in three others (grand finals) and lost, so this is absolutely a great feeling,” he said. “It’s even more special to be able to share it with family and friends here.”
Rohan revealed the players told late withdrawal Holmes they would do everything in their power to chase back-to-back success next season in order to give the luckless late withdrawal the premiership medal he was cruelly denied on Saturday.
“That was a heartache for Maxxy Holmes,” Rohan told the Herald Sun. “When we found out, it was fricken heartbreaking.
“He was a big key to us getting where we are. We all said to him that we will knuckle down and fight again and hopefully get one next year for him.
“I didn’t play in the granny (for Sydney) in 2012. Obviously it is hard for a young fellow, but he has held his head high and we will make sure we include him in everything.”
Young sensation Sam De Koning was shattered for his heartbroken mate, Holmes, but was committed to the vow to win another.
“It’s one of the worst feelings knowing that Max Holmes isn’t here with me with a medal, because he’s one of my best mates,” De Koning lamented after the victory.
“We’ve got a lot of young boys coming through, so I feel for him, personally. But I know with the young boys we’ve got coming through, we’ll be right for years to come.
“He’s in as good a spirits as you can be.
“He’s such a good person. He’s nothing but smiles for us (other) boys, and I just love him so much.
“We’ll get one. We’ll get one for him.”
As the player called up in Holmes’ absence, Brandan Parfitt was full of mixed emotions.
The 24-year-old played a life-changing 17 minutes of game time and can now claim the mantle of being a Geelong premiership player instead of a Cats heartbreak story.
“I wasn’t expecting it at the start of the week and in the last few weeks so it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster but I was so rapt to be out there,” he said.
“I always knew I was in the mix but you don’t really know and I found out last night so it was pretty crazy. It was a bit of a long week in the end. I am pretty devastated for Holmesy and I love him as a good mate and I feel bad but that is footy.
“They came to me and said they would tell me in the morning and then it was lunchtime and then it was in the arvo and it was a long day yesterday. A lot of (time for) thinking but I got the news I would be sub and (was told to) stay ready, which I did all day. I got the last 15 minutes and I was buzzing out there.”
De Koning, 21, said his 10-year-old self “wouldn’t believe it” if he’d been told he’d be a premiership player.
“I’m just so lucky to be able to play with such legends of the game is just unbelievable,” he said.
“And they’re playing so well and defying the odds with their age.”
De Koning’s mother Jackie – who became a cult sensation this season as her two boys Sam and Tom, who plays at Carlton, stamped their authority on the competition – told the Herald Sun she was “still overwhelmed by the enormity” of her son’s maiden flag win.
She said her rise had been “much to the embarrassment of my kids”, but Sam said the last few months was simply his mum to a tee.
“I can and I can’t (believe it),” he laughed.
“She’s been going for cult status her whole life.
“She applies for every TV show that comes out so she’s always wanted to be famous. The drama teacher just comes out. I love her – she’s just so good and so loving and generous and caring.”
Jackie’s only concern in coming days is the state of Sam’s blonde locks, which she said were a victim of premiership celebrations when he won an Under 18 premiership with Dandenong Stingrays, but Sam laughed that “I don’t really care” what happens to his hair in coming days.
“I didn’t care at the time and I don’t care now,” he said.
“When you’ve got a premiership medal it doesn’t matter.”
Originally published as AFL Grand Final 2022: All the reaction and fallout from Geelong’s big win over Sydney
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