By Jake Niall
Their 2009 grand final heartbreak can drive the Saints.
NEITHER Geelong nor St Kilda completed a comprehensive, all-in review of the 2009 grand final. This is not unusual. The victors seldom pick apart grand finals, while the losers, understandably, are keen to move on.
Geelong players celebrate last year's grand final win.Credit: Joe Armao
The unpleasant taste of grand final loss lingers, as it did for the Cats after the 2008 grand final. Trailing by seven points at three-quarter-time 12 months later, Geelong's players were determined to avoid the painful worst. ''We never spoke about the hurt from the 2008 grand final, but if you're a competitor, they're always in the back of your mind,'' ex-Geelong captain Tom Harley explained this week. ''At three-quarter-time they shifted from the back of the mind right to smack bang sitting in 1A.
''That's the one advantage, if you like, that St Kilda might have over Geelong this year. You know - not that that's going to get them to win - but you can't replicate the pain of losing a grand final until you've lost one.''
For those involved in what Harley described as ''a classic slugfest'', much of what happened - in the rooms, on the field and in the coach's box - is already consigned to the cutting-room floor of their minds. But the fragments that are embedded in memory are mainly moments that counted, such as the freakish ''toepoke'' from Matthew Scarlett to Gary Ablett that probably won the flag. In a game of near misses, if onlys and what ifs for the Saints, their first ''nearly'' came on the day of the game, when Max Hudghton, the popular veteran defender, was still a chance to play within an hour of the bounce.
The much-derided defender who had taken Hudghton's spot in the team, Zac Dawson, was on an intravenous drip the night before the grand final, due to a stomach virus. As St Kilda coach Ross Lyon and his football manager Greg Hutchison, recounted this week, the Saints were preparing for Hudghton to replace Dawson.
Lyon received a call from his fitness chief, David Misson, that evening, informing him that Zac was unwell. Dawson - whose rise from castaway to regular in place of Hudghton had been one of the stories of 2009 - was, in Hutchison's words, ''extremely doubtful''.
''We called up Max Hudghton,'' said Lyon, who told Hudghton to prepare as if he was playing. ''That's why Max got stripped [to play]. Even in the warm-up … there was a chance he [Dawson] mightn't play. It was pretty stressful.''
Dawson survived the warm up and played. Lyon felt that Dawson had ''played quite well'' on the day. On Hudghton, who would retire at season's end, Lyon said: ''It would have been hard for him.''
THE GAME was hard for the 44 players, their coaches and support staff. The 2009 grand final was one of the most ferocious games of the season. Of the 675 disposals that wet, overcast afternoon, 45.9 per cent were won in a contest, compared to the regular season's 31.3 per cent. A staggering 214 tackles were laid - 90 above average.
While, on one reading, the wet ball might have favoured the Saints, a super defensive team and tackling machine, Harley and Geelong's then senior assistant, Ken Hinkley, believe it handed a slight edge to the Cats, who played in open air. The Saints played mostly indoors.
''Geelong would have played in conditions like that every second week,'' said Hinkley, now a Gold Coast assistant, who noted that ''some of their [St Kilda's] keys [talls] were important.''
The most important ''key'' to be disadvantaged by the wet ball, of course, was St Kilda's champion skipper Nick Riewoldt. Riewoldt's numbers were respectable - 13 disposals, five marks and a goal - but he didn't take the game apart, as he had the previous finals. While he reportedly carried an adductor-muscle injury into the game, the Saints downplay the significance of the injury. ''It wasn't a big deal,'' said Hutchison. ''It wasn't an issue. Most people didn't know until post-game anyway.'''
EARLY in the match, the most threatening Saint wasn't sheriff Riewoldt but his deputy Lenny Hayes, who had five clearances, 11 touches in a goal in the first term. In the Geelong coach's box, it was decision time - the St Kilda ''heartbeat,'' as Hinkley called him, had to be curtailed.
Reluctant to remove premier tagger Cameron Ling from Nick Dal Santo, The Cats opted to give Bartel a rare run-with role. ''His first job was to be accountable to Hayes,'' said Hinkley.
Hayes would finish with 24 disposals and 18 contested balls, Bartel with 19 touches and an astonishing 16 tackles. The runaway Hayes train, though, was slowed.
Another issue for the Cats in that first quarter was the popping of Paul Chapman's fragile hamstring. Geelong football operations manager Neil Balme said Chapman would not have played in a grand final rematch; on the day, however, the Cats simply kept him on - a critical call, considering ''Chappy'' booted three goals, including the match-winner, en route to the Norm Smith Medal.
The Cats were influenced by having seen Chapman play with a hamstring tear against Adelaide in which he booted six goals late in the season. ''He's very powerful,'' said Balme of Chapman, whose strength of mind, much as muscular legs, got him through.
''There's no tomorrow,'' said Lyon of the grand final. ''It's the end. It's at the pointy end.''
The St Kilda coach was referring to both Chapman's hamstring and especially to St Kilda's decision to put Brendon Goddard, who had 14 influential touches in the first half, back on the ground in the third quarter despite a busted collarbone.
The Saints' doctors calculated that Goddard would not incur further damage. ''You don't take risks with player welfare,'' said Lyon. ''If there's any … potential for increasing or permanent injury, you don't go on.''
ST KILDA led by six behinds at half-time, courtesy of three goals in the last minute. When Justin Koschitzke soccered a goal with nine seconds left, Darren Milburn claimed - falsely - that he had touched the ball. He protested too much for umpire Steve McBurney, who paid a free in the goal square to Adam Schneider. The Saints led by six points as a consequence.
In the rooms, Milburn was flattened. ''He swore off ever talking to the umpire again,'' said Balme - an ambitious vow that Balme doubted ''Dasher'' had kept.
In terms of getting the breaks, this fortunate goal cancelled out the non-goal that Hawkins scored after smothering a Dawson kick on the edge of the goal square earlier in the second quarter. The Sherrin had scraped the post.
But the passage that lives in the memory of millions, came deep in time-on of the last quarter, when Dawson left his man to make a timely spoil of a Steve Johnson kick that was intended for Ablett.
The ball bobbed in the centre square. Hinkley reckoned the Saints had players ''goal side'' and were likely to score if they gained possession. With the scores level, any score might be enough.
Scarlett poked the ball with his right boot on the full to Ablett, who ran and then unloaded a long ball to a pack at the top of the goal square, where Travis Varcoe - one of the so-called lesser Cats whom Balme thought instrumental - shot off a handball to Chapman, who snapped the decisive goal.
Hinkley has reflected on the good fortune that Geelong's two best players and father-son champions happened to be in the right spot. Harley wondered how Ablett, manned closely by Clint Jones, found such space.
''It was an incredible piece of play,'' said Hinkley.
When asked to nominate his over-arching memory of the game, Hutchison nominated ''missed opportunities''. St Kilda's missed shots - principally by Stephen Milne, Schneider and Andrew McQualter - were most costly when it had control in the opening half.
Lyon did not focus on the misses when addressing his players post-match. ''Why point out the obvious. Why would I apportion blame?''
Harley's abiding memory was the bottom line: ''That we won.''