Luke Ball was hoping for an upset. He wasn’t expecting it but he already had enough anxiety on his plate and a Grand Final match-up against his old team was only going to magnify that by a thousand.

He wasn’t at home on the couch watching the St Kilda-Western Bulldogs preliminary final, instead the Collingwood midfielder was sitting in a hyperbaric chamber in Coburg.

The night before Ball had been enjoying the Magpies thrashing of Geelong in the first preliminary final when midway through the third quarter his hamstring seized up.

“We were flying and then halfway through the third quarter I had a really bad hamstring cramp,” Ball said.

“It was strange because I’d never had one before, so I thought I’d torn it.

“I didn’t finish the game. I finished with ice on my hammy thinking, ‘Sh**, I’m in trouble here’.”

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While Ball was staring at the walls of the hyperbaric chamber, his former team got hold of the Bulldogs in the second half to book their second Grand Final spot in as many years.

But not every Saint was jumping for joy. Nick Dal Santo was uncharacteristically sheepish after the win. He had a secret which he wasn’t totally sure what to do about.

The Saints midfielder had tweaked his hamstring midway through the preliminary final, but completed the game. All he offered to the club’s medical staff was that it was sore.

It wasn’t a lie, more the most positive spin on the situation. He didn’t tell anyone else about the injury as he turned his focus to the internet, looking up any miracle ways to accelerate the healing process.

“I was worried. All I could think about was even if I’m going to be able to get up and play, what if I do and then I do it during the granny and let the team down,” Dal Santo said.

Dane Swan had his own concerns but they were more about managing his time throughout Grand Final week.

His brilliant season meant he was in demand with his presence required at three functions, starting off with the Brownlow Medal and then the AFL Coaches’ Association Award night.

“Contrary to what people think I’m a homebody and love nothing more than to sit at home doing nothing,” Swan said.

“The first three nights I had something on and I wasn’t rapt about it.

He was an overwhelming favourite for the Brownlow which brought with it a level of stress.

“Everyone tells you after the season, ‘Mate you’re a moral, you’re going to win it’,” Swan said.

“So it’s hard when you’re driving your car not to just drift away and think, ‘I’ve had a good year and I might actually win this’.

“Then when you get there, you say the same thing every favourite does, that you’re not nervous, you’re just here for a good time and that you’ve got bigger things on Saturday. But you do want to win it.”

It was obvious early to the Magpies star that he wouldn’t be taking Charlie home, so he had to ramp up the “old fake smile and clap” as he watched Carlton’s Chris Judd collect his second Brownlow.

Judd polled 30 votes ahead of Geelong’s Gary Ablett on 26 with Swan third on 24, three votes ahead of his teammate Scott Pendlebury who was tied for fourth.

He had a bit more success the following night when he returned to Crown Palladium for the coaches’ awards night, taking home the MVP comfortably on 114 votes from Hawthorn’s Luke Hodge on 88.

Swan had some familiar company on the podium with Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse taking out the Coach of the Year award.

The Pies had finished the home-and-away season on top but there was one game in particular which had Malthouse feeling positive about what confronted him in four days’ time.

In Round 16 the Magpies had defeated St Kilda easily by eight goals to even the ledger over the year after the Saints won the first encounter between the teams in Round 3.

“We’ve bloodied their nose, (now) we can go past them,” were the coach’s thoughts.

His captain Nick Maxwell was of a similar mindset: “All of a sudden as a group we went, ‘Actually we’re a chance here, we’ve got them covered. We can beat them on the MCG’.”

For Swan and his good mate Ben Johnson that game changed the attitude of the Pies’ infamous Rat Pack.

It was no secret that the group — which also included Alan Didak and Heath Shaw — had earned a reputation for playing hard on and off the ground.

But that win over the Saints saw them reassess their after-dark activities as they realised they were a chance of achieving something special.

St Kilda didn’t fret over the loss. They’d created what had become known as the “St Kilda bubble” under coach Ross Lyon, a concept which had intrigued the AFL community.

No one could break the code and figure out exactly what Lyon continually referred to as “Saints footy”.

Goalsneak Adam Schneider shed some light on it: “We just go about our business. We’ve got this nice little trademark, there is expectation from each other (to live up to that) and that’s all we ask from each other.

“We just have got a great little bubble, nice and tight, and we just worry about what we can control. Every bloke has got a role in the team and that is all we focus on.”

Twelve months earlier they’d been through Grand Final week, and while they came up agonisingly short against Geelong, the experience had been invaluable according to Brendon Goddard.

They’d dealt with all the history about St Kilda only having won one premiership in its history and the associated expectation and pressure that comes with that.

“It was just easy because we all knew what to expect, we knew how to deal with it and even from the club’s perspective with all of the logistics it was a lot easier,” Goddard said.

“There wasn’t anything that was unexpected.”

Except the Collingwood army.

A COLLINGWOOD-STYLE GRAND FINAL PARADE

TRAVIS Cloke had been to the Grand Final parade many times. He’d heard all the stories about the last Saturday in September given his father David had played in two premierships with Richmond before he moved to Collingwood.

“I grew up wanting to be a part of it, obviously, with Dad being a part of it at Richmond and Collingwood, I had heard the stories and seen things,” he said.

“As a kid that is all you want to do and I was like, ‘How good is this’.”

Dale Thomas was also living out a childhood dream although his heart sunk when the teams were introduced on the steps of Government House.

Both captains were given a chance to address the crowd and when St Kilda’s Nick Riewoldt stepped up to the microphone the Collingwood army erupted.

“Collinnggwoooood. Collinnggwoooood, Collinnggwoooood …”

Riewoldt’s words were drowned out.

Lenny Hayes wasn’t impressed. “I thought that was a bit disrespectful and I remember thinking, ‘OK, it’s on. It’s on’.”

Collingwood veteran Simon Prestigiacomo didn’t really notice. He had other things on his mind because he knew he had to make the toughest decision of his life in the next couple of hours.

The Pies’ key defender hadn’t played since Round 20 because of a thigh injury but had been recalled for the Grand Final when the teams were announced on Thursday night.

But he wasn’t going to play.

At the Pies’ main training session on Wednesday he’d strained his groin and even though he managed to get through the light training session before the parade without the coaches noticing, he knew he wasn’t right.

When the bus dropped the Collingwood players back at the club’s Olympic Park base, Prestigiacomo waited around until Malthouse was alone in his office before he broke the news.

His coach was sad but not surprised. He admired the character of his key defender and the selflessness of the decision wasn’t lost on him.

Nathan Brown, who had been covering admirably for Prestigiacomo in recent weeks, was recalled. The other change was Leon Davis coming back in after missing the preliminary final with a niggle at the expense of Tyson Goldsack.

Ball had spent three days in the hyperbaric chamber and done enough to justify his spot.

“At that stage you do everything you can, every one per cent helps, but it certainly added to the anxiety around that week, just not being able to prepare as normally as I would have liked,” Ball said.

“I was OK, but the week certainly hadn’t gone to plan.”

St Kilda made one change. Ruckman Ben McEvoy made way for small defender Steven Baker who hadn’t played since Round 13 after being handed a nine-match suspension for a clash with Geelong’s Steve Johnson.

A foot injury suffered while on suspension had also hampered his cause and he’d been emergency for the Saints’ first two finals.

Dal Santo had done everything required throughout the week although his methods had tested the patience of his girlfriend, Julie.

“I was very anxious and I was going to bed listening to a meditation CD,” Dal Santo said. “It was all about blood flowing through your muscles, about recovery and rejuvenation of the muscles.

“I was going to sleep seven nights in a row listening to it, my girlfriend wasn’t overly thrilled but I had to do whatever it takes.”

THE NIGHT BEFORE

IT was a ritual which Brendon Goddard refused to break.

Throughout the 2010 season he would go around to Nick Riewoldt’s house for dinner the night before a game, but there were rules attached.

The boys would collect the takeaway and Riewoldt’s girlfriend, Catherine, would have the table set for them when they returned.

“There was an occasion when the table wasn’t set as Cath had got caught downstairs,” Goddard said. “We walked in and I said, ‘This can’t happen, it’s like we’re breaking our superstition’.

“I asked if she could please set the table and explained the routine. We then went back downstairs and then came back up again as if it was the first time we were entering the house.”

A couple of Collingwood mates were doing something similar with Swan and Johnson keeping up their pre-game meal date which was always either pasta or risotto.

Cloke’s choice was fish and chips which happened every Friday night at the house he shared with his brother in Richmond.

“A few mates would come around and have dinner and a few drinks, then they would normally go out,” he said. “The same thing happened Grand Final eve, they went out and did their thing.”

The buzz around town had been hard to ignore — there were 20,000 fans turning up to Collingwood’s training sessions — but it really hit home for Cloke when he went for his morning coffee on Grand Final day.

As he wandered down Cremorne St and turned into Swan St, he was taken aback when he saw 300 people lined up out the front of the Precinct Hotel.

“I was like, ‘What’s going on here?’,” Cloke said. “As soon as I went down to get my coffee it gave me that bit of realisation that, ‘Gee, it’s a bit different today’.”

Across town his teammate Dale Thomas had flicked on the TV and had also received a jolt.

“I put on one of the morning shows, not sure if it was Sunrise or the Today show, and they were doing a live cross to the MCG and there were people piling into the carpark,” Thomas said.

Scott Pendlebury was also having a reaction, but it wasn’t about excitement. He was sitting in his garden throwing up, the dinner from the night before and breakfast both coming back up.

He figured it was nerves and vowed not to tell anyone about it.

Ben Johnson wasn’t telling anyone about his plan to help a mate get into the Grand Final, who he met a couple of blocks from the MCG and put him in his boot.

He wasn’t the only interesting package making it inside as Goddard and Riewoldt smuggled in two expensive cigars.

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The idea of a memorable celebration had been talked about a few times during those pre-game dinners. They wanted it to be something special, something which had never been done before.

And they both agreed the timing was right. It was going to happen on Saturday, September 25 2010.

(Additional references used – The Final Draw documentary, Triple M and Fox Footy podcasts).