Written by The Final Four are now set and there are no surprises. The top four teams of the regular season all made it to the Preliminary Finals with the top two teams taking the short cut to the prelims by winning their Qualifying Finals – against the third and fourth teams on the ladder.
If everything follows this pattern, Collingwood will defeat the Hawks and the Cats will beat the Eagles, setting up the anticipated Grand Final showdown between the Cats and the Pies. Of course, if that pattern continued, then Collingwood would win the flag, and we can’t let that happen, now can we?
It may be a cliché, but it’s true: throw the home-and-away season out. It’s one game at a time. Each game is now its own season and we need two victories to come home. No doubt, the way home is filled with particularly thrilling potential victories and particularly agonizing potential defeats.
First up are the West Coast Eagles. We haven’t beaten them in a final, well… ever. We lost the Grand Finals to them in 1992 and 1994, with 1992 having handed us the double indignity of also having lost against them in the semis. And both times the Eagles were coached by current Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse. Oh, there are so many levels of justice which can be achieved, age-old wrongs which can be set right if the boys step up.
More recently, in Round 16, the Eagles defeated the Cats at Subiaco. A nice victory on Saturday can eliminate any lingering sting from that loss, which Chris Scott wisely describes as “ancient history.”
Fly like a Cat, to the G; fly like a Cat, let my spirit carry me...
If we can get by the Eagles, then either the Magpies or Hawks await. We’ve already beaten the Pies twice this season and the Hawks three times, including in the glorious Qualifying Final, which marked the first Cat final victory against the Hawks since the benchmark season of 1963. Basically, from 1963 to early this September it’s been a whole lot of heartache against Hawthorn, including devastating Grand Final losses in 1989 and 2008 with the gang that couldn’t kick straight. This year’s Qualifying Final win against the Hawks goes a good way towards getting the Hawthorn monkey off our backs. If we could beat the Hawks in the Grand Final, repeating the double knock-out punch of 1963, we could well and truly say that the monkey is toast. Well, maybe not toast – maybe simply displaced, with its new, rightful home down Waverly way.
So what is the measure of justice we can achieve if we meet and beat the Pies in the Grand Final that everyone expects to take place on that first day of October? We haven’t met Collingwood in a Grand Final since 1953. We lost, having beaten Collingwood in 1952. Prior to that, we split the two meetings in the 1930’s, having beaten them in 1937, but having lost in 1930 when Collingwood defeated the Cats to win their record fourth-straight Grand Final. No other team has ever won four consecutive premierships, and it was the Cats that had the honor of breaking that streak by taking the flag against Richmond in 1931. On the plus side of the ledger: Geelong beat Collingwood in their first Grand Final encounter in 1925.
More recently, we have beaten Collingwood in other finals matches. Though last year’s Preliminary Final defeat at the hands of the Pies still stings, the historical pain and suffering the Pies have inflicted upon us doesn’t rise to the level of the unfinished business we have with the Eagles and, more intensely, with the Hawks. Even if we can breathe more easily after our Qualifying Final victory this year against the Hawks, the indignities of 1989 and 2008 are still open wounds for Catfans young and elderly, new and old. I had no idea what footy was in 1989, but I have watched that Grand Final on dvd and it’s become a painful part of a collective memory I now share. No doubt, that bit of history can be counterbalanced by bookending those losses with a 1963-style double victory.
But, of course, there are other reasons to want to defeat the Pies in the Grand Final. The previously mentioned twofer payback for the Eagle’s 90’s Grand Final wins over the Cats, as well as the rhythmically righteous retaliatory riff: beat the Eagles one week, beat the Eagle’s premiership coach the next. Additionally, beating Collingwood – especially in a Grand Final – would have rewards all of its own. The Pies were and still are favorites to win back-to-back flags. Pie fans seem to be notoriously arrogant and deserve to be taken down a peg or three. The Cats would be seen as doing good works for the rest of the league, most of whose supporters would be barracking for Geelong under footy’s ABC (anyone but Collingwood) rule. Most importantly, the Cat classiness would have gained the upper hand over the Magpie army’s heart of darkness . From a Geelong supporter’s perspective: a classic triumph of good over evil.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This Saturday marks the Cats’ final match this September. Let’s make it count. Let’s focus on clipping the Eagles this Saturday. One game at a time. As the King (no, not Dave King) would say: time to take care of business first. It won’t be a cakewalk, but if we do manage to take care of business against the Eagles, October awaits with its unknown and untasted glories beckoning our boys home.
