AFL grand final 2022: All the latest news and analysis from Geelong’s triumph
Joel Selwood won hearts pre-game when he carried Gary Ablett’s son, Levi, through the banner. Then he saw someone special in the crowd after the siren. Watch the video.
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Joel Selwood – who won hearts with his touching moment with Levi Ablett, son of his great mate Gary, when he carried the youngster through the team banner – took his good bloke status into God tier when he rallied Sam Moorfoot, who has been the team’s water boy for seven years, to join the team on the ground.
Jeremy Cameron immediately removed his premiership medal and put it straight onto Moorfoot, who has Down syndrome and has become synonymous with the Cats, who then celebrated with the crowd.
He was also with the team when they sung the song in the rooms.
“We share a very special friendship, and I consider him like family. He has my back and I have his.” Selwood said of their relationship.
Asked what he thought of the skipper, Moorfoot said: “I think Joel is amazing. A great role model but also a little bit cheeky. He treats me like a brother and always looks out for me,” Moorfoot said.
“There isn’t one player at Geelong that isn’t kind and supportive. They are all my mates.”
Asked in the Cats rooms after the game if it was the best day of his life, a proud Moorfort answered without hesitation: “yes it is”.
“I know he is a favourite of a lot,” Selwood added on Channel 9 on Sunday morning.
“Sammy’s been part of our footy department for a long while. He is in our Cats shop for a little while and we had to bring him across to the footy department.
“He spends a day a week, sometimes two if the cameras are out, he loves the cameras.
“We just allow him in. To be honest, he is a pleasure to have around the footy club.”
Sammy’s moment 🥹#AFLGFpic.twitter.com/OK4GhdJQHV
— AFL (@AFL) September 24, 2022
When Selwood will make call on future
Geelong premiership captain Joel Selwood is split on whether he plays on but won’t make a decision until next week.
The inspirational leader said he would sit down with the club over the coming days to decide if his final game was Geelong’s 81-point humiliation of Sydney which gave him his fourth premiership medal.
“We’ll see, we’ll speak during the week obviously and I’m ready to go one way or the other but not now, I’m not the emotional type,” Selwood, 34, said.
“I’ve always been in the moment, I have always had that mindset to rest at that end. I just haven’t thought too much about that (next year) just yet.”
Selwood, who was one of the Cats best in his 355th game, said physically he was feeling as good as he had all season.
“I feel a million bucks to be honest, I do,” he said. “I said during the week if this season was to go another four weeks I’d be OK.”
The Cats have handled the skipper’s preparation, and that of his midfield partner Patrick Dangerfield brilliantly, resting both a number of times during the season to ensure they hit September fitter than they had in previous years.
“From the outset I knew it was going to be different (this season),” Selwood said. “I didn’t like Round 4 when I got told but the other ones I was ready to be honest, it was a lot after milestone games.
“There was also a small quad injury and there was a small little crack in the back for a little bit too.
“Both Patty and I felt like we were running on top of the ground, we had a program where as everyone noted, we weren’t playing as much game time but we were trying to put the power on the game.”
Yes Joel â¤ï¸#AFLGFpic.twitter.com/HGIhi3p1EK
— AFL (@AFL) September 24, 2022
If it is to be his last game, Selwood wound back the clock and was the leading possession winner on the ground at quarter-time with 12 as he set the tone for his team’s six goal to one avalanche.
But the captain’s best moment came in the dying minutes when he kicked the second last goal of the game, an impressive 40m banana kick which saw him swamped by his teammates.
Selwood looked like he let his emotions out in the moment but was coy afterwards saying “he’d been practising that for years”.
It’s been a big month for the Cats superstar who after years of trying announced he and his wife, Brit, are expecting their first child next year
“We can’t wait for that in late Feb,” Selwood said. “It is going to be so special.”
Ironically the last Geelong premiership captain Cameron Ling, who handed Selwood and coach Chris Scott the trophy on stage, retired immediately after raising it in 2011.
Why ‘new’ Cats can go back-to-back
— Scott Gullan
Why not?
As Geelong completed a grand final demolition on Sydney, that was the question many were asking as the final quarter petered out to the result everyone at the MCG knew was going to happen a couple of hours earlier.
The six goal to one opening took all the air out of the 2022 decider and as is always the case with the victors on the last Saturday in September, the word dynasty gets a run around.
Geelong already has that so the discussion can be narrowed to can the oldest team in the history of the AFL to win a flag, win another one in 12 months time?
Why not?
Don’t forget this was the “new” Geelong with their different style and a handful of different players from their last grand final appearance two years ago.
The statistics would say this was a special season and day where the moons aligned and they got it done.
Ten players in the team were over 30 with two others set to turn 30 next year. Generally that is alarm bells in AFL list building but Geelong like to thumb their noses at convention.
On the evidence of the performances of some of the “old timers”, why would they not go again.
Captain Joel Selwood is the obvious one - and who knows what he might do in the coming days - but have a look at his first quarter when the game was at its hottest, he had 12 possessions and set the tone.
Tom Hawkins is the second oldest, he kicked the opening two goals of the game and could have ended with a bag if he’d kicked straight.
Ex-Hawk Isaac Smith was supposed to be a short-term option when he arrived a couple of years ago. He won the Norm Smith Medal and didn’t look like someone who was about to run out of steam.
Irishman Zac Tuohy hasn’t got a deal for next year but should have one by Monday while the majority of the Cats best in the GF were the 30 plus brigade including Mark Blicavs, Cam Guthrie, Mitch Duncan and of course there’s Patrick Dangerfield.
Do any of them look like they’re about to fall off the cliff?
The Cats have clearly been the best team this year, the grand final was their 16th consecutive victory and that was built off a game style tweak and the development of their kids.
Full-back Sam De Koning led the way while Tyson Stengle’s year has been well documented - he kicked four to go with his All-Australian jumper - then there is Brad Close, Max Holmes (who sadly missed the GF), Zac Guthrie, Gryan Miers and Tom Atkins who have all played career-best football this year.
They’re not going to go backwards next year.
And there is Jeremy Cameron, the prized recruit the Cats spent all their money to get them over the preliminary final hump. He turns 30 next year but is very much at the peak of his powers.
This team has an edge. The coach has an edge. Chris Scott has had critics circling him for years but he delivered his second premiership at Kardinia Park with a team and a plan which had his fingerprints all over it.
You could pick a dozen moments to show the hunger, relentless toughness, ruthlessness and manic mindset which this team has.
In the third quarter Tom Stewart, who had not been allowed his usual freedom by Swans tagger Ryan Clarke, sprinted 15 metres to tackle Clarke who had a couple of teammates free ahead of him for what looked like a certain Sydney goal.
Instead Stewart executed a perfect punishing tackle, the ball spilled and the Cats whizzed it up the Shane Warne Stand wing to Hawkins. While he didn’t follow the script and missed the set shot, the moment resonated with every Geelong player.
They ran to Stewart because they knew those were the acts which won them the premiership. The Cats were 59 points up at the time which says it all.
A peak at the contenders for next year and they’re already tinkering.
Richmond is reloading with its veterans and adding a couple of GWS midfielders, Melbourne is intent on getting Brodie Grundy, Collingwood has its sights on five recycled players from various clubs while Brisbane is eyeing off Western Bulldog midfield star Josh Dunkley.
Will that make them as good as what Geelong were on Saturday?
The Cats won the preliminary final by 71 points and the grand final by 81 points so the short answer is no.
As Scott sits back and has a quiet beer with his players on Wacky Wednesday, he will be able to look around the room and say with conviction: “Why not?”
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