SACKED podcast: Former Geelong forward Cameron Mooney on 2011 Grand Final, secret to ‘09 win

Cameron Mooney was pictured in tears after Geelong’s 2011 premiership, but the man himself believes it was the right call for him to be left out of the side. Listen to this week’s SACKED here.

Cameron Mooney says Chris Scott still cannot explain the remarkable “gut feel” call that saw him select Tom Hawkins for his matchwinning 2011 premiership performance.

Mooney admits his body was “cooked” in that 2011 season and says first-year coach Scott’s bold call to overlook him was entirely justified given Hawkins’ brilliant game-turning performance against Collingwood in the Grand Final.

Scott has at times had his 2011 premiership achievement downplayed because he inherited a champion two-flag side from Mark Thompson.

But Mooney told the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast it was a brilliant coaching call from Scott, even if it sidelined him from a bid for three flags at Geelong and four across his entire career.

“I got to the end of 2010 and my knee was really cooked. And I thought, ‘I‘ve got at least one more year’,” Mooney said.

“With any luck you try and push for two, as you do when you are getting to the end, and I reckon it was about February in pre-season I went for a contest with one of the many young boys and my knee gave way on me.

“I probably should have retired then and there, I couldn’t get going.

“Then I spent the first half of the year in and out of the ones, I was losing fitness and my body was completely shutting down on me.

“I went back to the reserves for a little bit, and got fit. Came back into the side against Melbourne that day, we kicked 200 odd points. I thought I’m on my way. I’m feeling good. And then the next week we played Gold Coast. So we played the two worst teams in the comp. I’ve beaten up on them and I thought I was going all right

“But we played Adelaide and my body was playing up and I got suspended and to Scotty’s credit it was between Tom Hawkins and myself, Pods (James Podsiadly) was the number one forward and I was coming back from suspension and Hawkins didn’t play well and I thought, ‘Well, I’m back in here’. I sat down with Scotty during the week. And he basically just said, Man, I can’t give you a reason why but I’m gonna go with the young bloke’.

“And he ended up going with Hawkins. It was the best decision that he ever made and we saw Tommy Hawkins go from a boy to a man in the space of four weeks. Or probably in the space of a half of football.”

A teary Mooney with Mitch Duncan during Geelong’s celebrations.

An emotional Cameron Mooney embraces Jimmy Bartel after the 2011 decider.

Cameron Mooney has praised Chris Scott’s coaching before the 2011 Grand Final.

He says he has asked Scott since then about his decision to select Hawkins after only 18 goals in 12 games to round 23 of that season.

“I have, but even he says he just had to go with his gut feel. He doesn‘t know what it was. But in the end, it was a great decision,” Mooney said.

“Because I look at what happened on Grand Final day and Pods goes down (with a dislocated shoulder) at halftime. There’s no way I could have done what Tom Hawkins did, no way.

“Does Geelong win the premiership without Tom Hawkins? No way. He just kicked three in the third quarter and the big marks that he was taking, I couldn’t have done that. So we watched a boy become a man and it was so good to watch.”

Mooney says the bittersweet feeling of watching the Grand Final saw him thrilled for his young pupil in Hawkins as he hauled in seven contested marks.

But he was shattered to miss the third premiership.

“It was tough, really tough,” he said.

“You go back to 2000 when myself came and then there was Cameron Ling, Joel Corey, Cory Enright, Paul Chapman. We all came to the club at the same time. So we grew the club together and then not to be there for that third granny was really tough.

“But I wasn’t good enough to be in the team, I fell off a cliff and a young bloke decided to take the bull by the horns and became a superstar overnight. Turned into one of the best forwards the game has seen.”

Problem so bad it reduced Cats hard man to tears

Triple premiership forward Cam Mooney says his goalkicking “yips” grew so debilitating he would break down in tears on his way to training after blaming himself for the 2008 Grand Final loss.

Mooney says one of his great regrets in his career is not asking for expert help from a sports psychologist because he believed it would be weak.

The All Australian says his goalkicking woes “completely overwhelmed me” during the 2008-2009 seasons, making the remarkable concession that he was “almost shaking” as he lined up for some close-range shots.

Mooney would win two premierships with the Cats after being traded weeks after replacing the suspended Jason McCartney in North Melbourne’s 1999 premiership side and kicked five goals in the 2007 Grand Final as part of a 67-goal season.

Cameron Mooney shows his disappoint at a missed set shot.

Mooney says his yips became so bad in 2008 he was “a wreck”.

But Mooney admits the little man on his shoulder tortured him in part because of two horror misses either side of half time in the 2008 Grand Final loss to Hawthorn.

“Every day …. Every day, it still goes through my mind,” Mooney told Sacked.

“I had a lot of trouble with it in ‘08. And those two shots either side of half time just kept going through my head. And it got the better of me ….

“So by the end of the year, I clearly had the yips in front of goal.

“There were times that I didn’t want to take a mark inside 50 because I didn’t want to have a shot because I was just a wreck. You know, I blamed myself for the loss.

“There were a lot of things that went wrong on the day. But (if) I kick that goal just before halftime, we go in in front. (If) I kick the one just after halftime, all of a sudden we are 10 points up. That might have just got us going because we weren’t even playing that well.

“So for a long time those shots were going through my head. And as I was living in Melbourne, I was driving up and down the highway to training. And there were days where I was just in tears. It just completely overwhelmed me and got the better of me for a period.”

Mooney says he wasn’t strong enough back then to ask for help from the kind of sports psychologists or mindfulness coaches that today help so many modern-day AFL stars.

“Well, it’s a really tough one because you are supposed to be the man,” he said.

“You are the main man in front of goal. I was the leading goal kicker in ‘07 and then all of a sudden not wanting to be the guy who takes that shot … because I would take the mark and then I would hear the murmurs. I would be lining up and almost shaking, I was so nervous about spraying it.

“I thought about it. But it was a time when (the expectation is) you’re a man. You had to deal with it yourself. That was one of my biggest regrets that I didn’t go and see someone. I didn’t talk to anyone. I never had depression, but I was depressed about what had happened.

“I was so sad. I was so upset. So I thought I’d blown every opportunity for us to go back-to-back.

“It’s so hard to win a premiership to go back to back so almost impossible and I thought I had blown the opportunity for a group of boys who deserved it. That’s why ‘09 was so important to win because I didn’t want that group (to be like) Essendon.

Mooney can only look away after a missed shot against Melbourne.

“(The Bombers) were arguably the best team we have ever seen in 2000 and 99 to 2001 they were the best team but they walked away with one premiership

“I didn’t want the Geelong boys to walk away with one premiership, so ‘09 was so important to win.”

In three 2009 finals Mooney kicked 2.2, 1.2 and 2.1, with scores tied at the 23-minute-mark of the last term against St Kilda when he led out at centre half forward.

Opponent Zac Dawson’s clearing spoil landed in the centre square, where defender Matthew Scarlett’s toe-poke landed in Gary Ablett’s hands.

Paul Chapman kicked the go-ahead goal that won Geelong its second premiership, with the third flag to come two years later in 2011.

“Well it‘s funny because I’ve blown ‘08,” Mooney said.

“So the ball got kicked into Gaz in the middle of the ground, Zac Dawson’s come off me and spoiled the ball. So I thought, ‘Shit, I’ve just blown ‘09 as well’. I thought, ‘God, this is not happening’, and then Scarlo comes through and does what he does.

“By this stage I have turned the other way, as I ran into the goalsquare I went for the mark and thought, ‘Yes, redemption, I am going to take the mark and kick this one,’ and then Max Rooke came the other way and crashed us all and then Chappy gets the ball and kicks a great goal.

“(It’s) still the greatest game I have ever been involved in, the toughest game I have ever been involved in.

“At three quarter time Bomber (coach Mark Thompson said), ‘Remember this time last year when you all walked off without a medal, remember that hurt,’ and we played the toughest brand of football I have ever seen played in that quarter, it was just incredible.”

Originally published as SACKED podcast: Former Geelong forward Cameron Mooney on 2011 Grand Final, secret to ‘09 win