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[Doc1763]

Does anyone have access to the The Last Draw Parts 1 & 2 from the Herald Sun?

 

[Jen2310]

Does anyone have access to the The Last Draw Parts 1 & 2 from the Herald Sun?

part 1.

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’.”


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.

“That’s when we knew our best was better than anyone else’s,” Swan said.
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.

“I was sitting there cringing,” Thomas said. “It is these types of things that you forever hear about coming back to bite you on the bum.”
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.

“I had to flick it over because it was 8am in the morning and I was already starting to get tingles.”
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.

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.

 

[Jen2310]

part 2.

Nick Dal Santo was screaming. His teammate Clint Jones was standing not even five metres away but he wasn’t flinching.

The noise when the teams had run out had been as loud as anything Dal Santo had experienced on a football field. And now even when the game was underway it was still overwhelming.

Dal Santo was trying to get Jones, who had the tagging job on Dane Swan, to swap sides at the centre wing stoppage.

“I was screaming at him and he couldn’t hear a word I was saying because it was just so loud that basically you couldn’t speak to each other at times,” Dal Santo said.

There had been no let-up in the noise from the opening bounce and it got even louder 22 seconds into the game when the Magpies scored the opening goal of the Grand Final.

And it was the unlikely figure of ruckman Darren Jolly who got it, courtesy of a brilliant handball from Alan Didak which found the former Sydney Swan big man at the top of the goalsquare.

The recruitment of Jolly and Luke Ball, who had left St Kilda after falling out with coach Ross Lyon following the Saints agonising Grand Final loss to Geelong the previous year, had proved to be an inspired move.

For Swan the addition of Jolly, a premiership player at Sydney in 2005, was the missing piece in the Magpies puzzle.

“My whole career until then we had never had that big dominant ruckman,” Swan said. “Jolly was the perfect fit for us.”

The Collingwood chant was momentarily muted when Stephen Milne got the Saints on the board five minutes later but it was only a brief respite.

When Swan chipped a pass to Dale Thomas out wide on the half-forward flank the Pies were rolling. They’d kicked back-to-back goals through Jarryd Blair and Didak, the later an extraordinary set shot from the boundary line.

Thomas was outside the 50m arc and as he went back he quickly made an assessment of the situation which not many in his shoes would have agreed with.

“Being young and brash, not many would have a ping from 52 or 53 metres out with a torp in the first quarter,” Thomas said.

“But that was the confidence Mick (Malthouse) gave me to play with so I went back and thought, ‘Bugger it, there’s no real point going to the top of the square so I’ll have a shot’.

“The breeze was slightly with me but I hit it halfway up my shin. It started in the middle of the points and then drifted around the goal post somehow.

“And then with its dying breath it managed to cover everyone on the line and fall in.”
Thomas’ mongrel torpedo punt goal was the final straw for Brendon Goddard.

“They were kicking goals out of their arse and I was like, ‘It’s not going to be one of those games where nothing can go wrong for them’,” he said.

Goddard had also been surprised by the noise factor given he figured having played in a Grand Final 12 months earlier would have prepared the Saints for the occasion.

“There was this perceived pressure,” he said. “We had played the year before but I remember my first possession I was rushed and I felt like the crowd was going nuts which made you feel like you were under pressure.

“I actually asked to have a look at the footage of it at quarter-time just to get a feel and I’d actually had three or four metres of space.

“But I felt this pressure from the crowd, you just had this sense that the Collingwood supporters were cheering because you were about to get run down from behind.”

The pressure continued on the scoreboard also as the Magpies domination kicked in with three goals to one in the second quarter seeing the half-time margin out to 24 points.

It should have been a lot more which was what was worrying Collingwood captain Nick Maxwell as he ran off.


Centre half-forward Travis Cloke had sprayed a couple of golden opportunities late in the term which made Mick Malthouse distinctly uncomfortable.

“I could sense that the player group thought, ‘We’ve got them and that it will continue’,” Malthouse said.

Nick Riewoldt was on the prowl in the Saints rooms. He sensed the door hadn’t been shut and went about ensuring his teammates understood that.

Dal Santo was getting his regular half-time massage when the skipper strode past.

“He was saying, ‘This is what we train for, this is who we are, we love these situations, we’ve been here before’,” Dal Santo said. “It hit something with me and I thought, ‘Yeah that’s true, this is what we do’.”

Lenny Hayes used actions more than words so when he started pacing around his teammates they couldn’t help but pick up on the fire that was burning inside the star on-baller.

“Lenny brought up the year before. He was telling us to remember the pain of 2009 and use it,” Leigh Montagna said.
Ross Lyon was calm. He simply reinforced the Saints footy motto and made the point that this team may never be in this position again.

“There are no guarantees so whatever you have got, make sure you give it,” Lyon said.

Strategically he moved Farren Ray to Swan because Jones’ tag wasn’t working while assistant coach Greg Hutchison suggested defender Sam Gilbert should move forward to spark things up given the Saints had only kicked four goals.

Riewoldt’s final words as the team prepared to run out struck a nerve with Goddard: “It was compelling, he asked everyone if they believed we could still win and if you don’t, you can stay here in these rooms.”

Lyon had been in the game too long to try and read the group but he liked what he’d heard and seen during the break.

What he wasn’t so sure about was the basins in the bathrooms which he noticed were filling up as he dashed past on his way back to the coaches’ box.





THE MOMENT THAT CHANGED THE MATCH
THE symbolism wasn’t lost on anyone.
When Hayes and Swan collided inside the opening minute of the third quarter, the MCG shook. The Collingwood star had been planted into the turf by a brutal tackle and penalised for dropping the ball.
A statement had been made and St Kilda’s favourite son had made it emphatically.
“Lenny had talked the talk and now he’d walked the walk,” Montagna said.
The Saints were a different team and fittingly it was Riewoldt who kicked the first goal of the term after some trademark gut running led to a set shot from 30 metres.
Goddard had been influential all day and he then imposed himself again on the contest with his first goal coming after he floated across in front of the pack with one-hand to pull down the mark just 15 metres out.
The margin was now only 13 points and three minutes later it was down to seven with the Gilbert move delivering big time when the defender nailed a shot off one-step from the pocket.
Collingwood were under siege and they weren’t helping themselves with Thomas and Blair blowing golden opportunities to stem the bleeding late in the quarter.
Lyon’s message was simple in the three-quarter time huddle:
“Stay in the moment. Go from moment to moment, we don’t need anything special. Everyone just has to do their job.”
His opposite number was furious that his gut feel had been right but Malthouse knew he couldn’t show it, instead he went about reinforcing how the Collingwood way had been so successful all year and that if everyone stayed on script it would hold up.
He knew the group would respond, he just didn’t know who would be the one to spark it.
And he probably wasn’t expecting Leon Davis.
The Pies veteran had barely touched the ball all day which had followed a similar tale to his previous two appearances in grand finals, back in 2002 and 2003.
After an arm wrestle for the opening seven minutes, Collingwood big man Leigh Brown punched the ball forward from a stoppage towards Davis and his shadow Sean Dempster.
In the blink of an eye Davis grabbed the ball, zipped inside, broke one tackle and kicked the goal brilliantly around his body from 40 metres out.
His timing was impeccable as was Hayes’ three minutes later.
When he marked outside the 50m arc his teammates figured Hayes’ 26th possession would either be a short pass or a set-up kick to the top of the goalsquare.
He could do many things but nailing long shots for goal from outside 50m wasn’t in his wheelhouse.
Until now.
As Montagna watched the kick sail over the goal line, he was in awe of the man wearing No.7. “Far out he’s carrying us,” he thought.
A minute later Milne found himself isolated one-on-one with Harry O’Brien which he used to his advantage beautifully, taking the mark and kicking truly to put the Saints within one point.
Collingwood needed its own hero so captain Nick Maxwell decided to put on his cape.



When Riewoldt quickly had a hurried snap out of the pack from 30 metres out his end-on-end kick looked certain to bounce through until Maxwell produced a stunning full-length dive to get his fingers on it just before the goalline.

“You kick that 20 more times and it wouldn’t sit up like that at that point of time,” a relieved Thomas observed. “Usually there is that little skip step at the end and then it kicks on but for whatever reason it didn’t do that.”

It wouldn’t be the last time St Kilda fans cursed the bounce of the ball.

THE ULTIMATE FINAL QUARTER
LUKE Ball wasn’t having a great day.

“I struggled to get into the game, I’d really had an absolute shocker,” he said.

And he had a sense it was about to get even worse as he watched a hurried Hayes kick float towards where he was manning Goddard at the top of St Kilda’s goalsquare.

“I remember the kick coming in and I thought, ‘F***ing hell, he has got the sit here’.”

Goddard had been growing increasingly frustrated that the ball hadn’t come towards the match-up he’d engineered with his undersized former teammate.

“I was outside 50 at one point so I thought I have to get inside 50 to try and get some isolation on Bally,” he said.

“But they were stuffing around with the ball on the junction of the boundary line and I was cracking the sh*** in my head.
“I was waving to them to get it into me. Finally it came in and it was just one of those things, I had the perfect sit.”

Goddard had managed to lose contact with Ball and launched on the shoulders of O’Brien.

“He (O’Brien) was unfortunately just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Goddard said. “I think anyone who takes a good hanger you kind of realise, ‘Yeah that was pretty good’.

“Watching it back I get bigger chills because you see the crowd, you see the ball come in and the whole stand erupt and that makes the hair stand on the back of your neck.”

The mark was destined to be the iconic image of the 2010 Grand Final and be forever seen as the moment St Kilda broke its premiership drought.

Or so a few of Goddard’s teammates were thinking.

Defender Steven Baker watched the goal – which put the Saints infront for the first time – from the wing and as he walked back into position, his eyes met those of teammate Justin Koschitzke.

“I looked at Kosi and looked in his eyes, he had this big grin on his face,” Baker said. “I got the goosebumps and went back to line up on my man thinking we have got this.”

Montagna had similar feelings.

“I remember thinking this is now real. For the whole of the game we were on the back foot and chasing, that was the first sort of moment where I thought, ‘Gee, this might actually come off’,” he said.



Goddard had checked the clock when he went back for his kick and estimated there was at least six minutes remaining so his head had gone straight to the next centre bounce.

“A few of us used to talk about, ‘Just play to the last second’, that was one of our key messages. It meant something to all of us, just about continually staying in the moment.

“So the midfielders were yelling that out as we ran back to the centre square. I think most of us felt that the crowd thought ‘This is it’ but we were trying to get the message out to just keep playing.”

Swan was shaking his head as he headed back to the middle thinking “don’t let this be the way we lose a granny”.

His captain had already made a decision about how he was going to play out the final minutes.

“I made a conscious decision that if the ball comes in my area I’m going to try something,” Maxwell said.

“I’m going to go for it, to risk them getting a goal and us losing for a chance to win it.”
Luckily for the Magpies, the skipper was a man of his word.

With less than four minutes remaining St Kilda’s lead was five points when Sam Fisher ran off half-back and kicked long towards Gilbert.

Normally Maxwell would put his sizable fist in the way but in keeping with his new declaration he instead leapt high and took a spectacular mark.

And then he was off, even taking a bounce, as he moved into the centre of the ground before delivering a pass to Alan Didak.

He then went short to Steele Sidebottom on the wing who spotted Brent Macaffer by himself near the boundary line. He immediately played on and ran to 55m before kicking long to the top of the goalsquare.

And guess who was in the box seat again?

Goddard was in the perfect spot to take the mark having bodied Pies forward Chris Dawes out of the contest.

He thought he had protection from behind through Jason Gram but at the last second Collingwood’s Heath Shaw crashed into him spoiling the mark.

Goddard then watched in horror as the ball fell into the lap of Dawes who was on the ground. He immediately handballed to Travis Cloke for the easiest goal of his career which put the Magpies back in front.

“Personally that is a big moment because if I’d taken the mark we could have slowed it down and maintained possession for a while,” he said.

There was no slowing down in the next couple of minutes as bodies flew everywhere with 36 players searching for their moment.



It was no surprise that it was St Kilda’s leaders who stood up.

First Riewoldt pulled down a huge pack mark at half-back. He then went long towards centre half-forward where Hayes ran onto the loose ball and immediately threw the ball on his boot.

What happened in the next six seconds shaped football history and changed the lives of so many.

Ben Johnson would later compare the initial bounce of the ball to Shane Warne’s famous Gatting ball. What it did was put him out of the contest and provide Stephen Milne with a free run at the ball and the goals.

Then the Sherrin did something that every player on that field still can’t explain 10 years on.

It somehow kicked sideways right out of the reach of Milne who was paused and ready to accept the ball had it done what everyone at the MCG expected and bounced up normally.

“If I could have dived for it I would have dived for it but I couldn’t,” Milne says. “I’ve lost many sleepless nights over it. I’ve thought about it thousands of times.”

Hayes still blames himself for the kick. “Looking back, could I have taken a couple of extra steps? Could I have put the ball out in front of him?”

Dal Santo has analysed every angle of it. “That ball could have bounced any direction apart from the hard right turn and we win the game.”

Montagna had been shepherding Hayes when he kicked it and can’t believe Milne’s actions were questioned.


“At the time and still to this day I think Milney did the right thing. People ask why didn’t he dive on the football but no-one does that in the forward pocket and if anyone knows how to read the bounce of a ball it’s Stephen Milne.”

There was still 90 seconds remaining after the point which levelled the scores.

For what seemed like an eternity the ball stayed on the members’ wing with St Kilda getting one last foray forward which the Magpies were able to repel with a series of small heroic acts.

A Scott Pendlebury tackle and then a Heath Shaw clearing kick saved Collingwood before Gram’s decision to leave his opponent and run at a rampaging Swan saved the game for the Saints.


When the siren sounded declaring the AFL had its third Grand Final draw in history there was widespread confusion on the ground as players slumped to the ground.

But in the Collingwood coach’s box there was clarity. For Malthouse it was only half-time and he had a simple instruction for his assistants.

“Let’s go down there and tell them they’ve just qualified for a Grand Final and a chance to win a premiership.”

 

[Doc1763]

^
Thanks Jen, great read. I cant believe I got anxious just reading about that last quarter.

Even to this day, I cant watch it. I know its ridiculous, but I just cant do it.

 

[Prestigerrycomo]

^
Thanks Jen, great read. I cant believe I got anxious just reading about that last quarter.

Even to this day, I cant watch it. I know its ridiculous, but I just cant do it.

Same, even with 2018 the last 5 minutes of the 2010 draw are the worst feeling ive had watching footy

 

[Doc1763]

Same, even with 2018 the last 5 minutes of the 2010 draw are the worst feeling ive had watching footy

My seat was Row A, right beside "that" behind post!! I will never forget it.

 

[The Royal Sampler]

Yep that makes me nervous reading it, even though the result came 10 years ago!

 

[Pistol Night]

That game just encapsulates the history of the Collingwood Football Club to a tee. Up against an inferior opponent which it belted in previous and subsequent games, but somehow manged to nearly s**t the bed in the important one.

 

[Sea fog]

That game just encapsulates the history of the Collingwood Football Club to a tee. Up against an inferior opponent which it belted in previous and subsequent games, but somehow manged to nearly sh*t the bed in the important one.

That's why we are often better in underdog games.

 

[manicmagpie]

“If I could have dived for it I would have dived for it but I couldn’t,” Milne says. “I’ve lost many sleepless nights over it. I’ve thought about it thousands of times.”

Chef's kiss emoji.

 

[manicmagpie]

^
Thanks Jen, great read. I cant believe I got anxious just reading about that last quarter.

Even to this day, I cant watch it. I know its ridiculous, but I just cant do it.

That's interesting. I love the drawn GF. I've watched the last quarter a huge number of times.

Even sitting in the stands immediately after the siren I was enjoying it. I think I felt two things: firstly that we were the better team and given a second crack we would win it; and secondly that it was an amazing thing to witness that I probably would never see again.

Of course my dad, who had been there done that in '77 felt just like you do.

 

[Doc1763]

Chef's kiss emoji.

It was actually a lot further away from him than it looks on the TV. It skipped away from him really quickly

 

[Doc1763]

That's interesting. I love the drawn GF. I've watched the last quarter a huge number of times.

Even sitting in the stands immediately after the siren I was enjoying it. I think I felt two things: firstly that we were the better team and given a second crack we would win it; and secondly that it was an amazing thing to witness that I probably would never see again.

Of course my dad, who had been there done that in '77 felt just like you do.

Ah, the horror of '77 - 27 up at 3 quarter time, Moore running into an open goal & missing, Manassa handballing to Dench in the North goal square - it could only happen to us.

 

[jackcass]

Ah, the horror of '77 - 27 up at 3 quarter time, Moore running into an open goal & missing, Manassa handballing to Dench in the North goal square - it could only happen to us.

These sorts of things should never be posted without appropriate warnings and flashing lights.

 

[Obese Arachnid]

These sorts of things should never be posted without appropriate warnings and flashing lights.

Too late

 

[Doc1763]

^
Thanks Jen, great read. I cant believe I got anxious just reading about that last quarter.

Even to this day, I cant watch it. I know its ridiculous, but I just cant do it.

Hi Jen, do you have Part 3?

 

[Jen2310]

Hi Jen, do you have Part 3?

Just about to post it now Haha.

DANE Swan’s mind instantly went to Las Vegas. He was supposed to be on a plane next Saturday for his end-of-season holiday.

There had been silence initially after the siren but now there was chaos.

Nick Maxwell was visibly upset and acting as if there should be extra time.

“It’s not right. It’s not right. This is a joke,” he said.

Scott Pendlebury thought he was going to be required to play another 10 minutes and was worried he didn’t have anything more to give.

Leigh Montagna was confused when the teams started to get into their own huddles.

“The players got in a huddle and I was like, ‘Hang on a minute, have they changed the rules?’,” he said.

“There was that split second where I thought we might be playing extra time.”


AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou had made his way onto the ground after a quick meeting with key staff in the function room upstairs.

He approached the captains – Maxwell and Nick Riewoldt – who were now standing alongside each other trying to make sense of the situation.

The Collingwood captain didn’t hold back when he saw the league boss while Riewoldt simply asked: “You’re pretty happy aren’t you Andrew? But can you change your mind?.”

Coming back the following week was a financial bonanza for the AFL but Demetriou wasn’t the only one secretly excited about that scenario.

Luke Ball had been on the bench for the final three minutes, which had given him time to process all three possible outcomes.

“In the end I was almost a touch relieved when the siren went,” he said.

“I thought OK I can have another go at it and hopefully I will handle the week better this time around. I will be fresher.

“And I thought we had more upside a week after. With young blokes sometimes you have to lose one to come back and appreciate it the next year but these young blokes were going to get another go in a week’s time so they’ll be better for it.”


Dal Santo had finished with the ball in his hands when the siren sounded. His hamstring had survived a couple of moments where he thought it was going to tear off the bone and as he tried to make sense of what was going on around him, he knew he’d be better in seven days time.

“I got through the game, I didn’t play overly well and I remember thinking, ‘I get another week of recovery and I’m going to definitely contribute more than I did today’.”
Lenny Hayes was physically spent and had lost his voice, which wasn’t ideal when an AFL official came up and told him that he’d won the Norm Smith Medal and would be required to say a few words.

Collingwood president Eddie McGuire was in full voice in a small huddle with coach Mick Malthouse, football manager Geoff Walsh and Maxwell.

He was adamant that the team should attend the post-game function at Crown Casino and he had history on his side.

After the last Grand Final draw in 1977 North Melbourne had gone to their function afterwards and Collingwood didn’t. The following week the Kangaroos romped home in the replay.

Malthouse didn’t need to have his arm twisted; he’d already made the decision that his players would be attending the dinner despite Maxwell’s protests.

And if things couldn’t get any more bizarre, the excess water in the basins that Ross Lyon had spotted at halftime had turned into a full-on sewerage flood, which meant the teams had to be relocated to the Great Southern Stand.

For an hour the players had to wait for their gear to be brought back around.



“It was a nightmare,” Swan said.

“We were just sitting in these old school change rooms under the Southern Stand just kicking rocks thinking what a pain in the arse the whole thing was.”

Malthouse called for a show of hands of those who wanted to attend the dinner. No-one did. He then asked who didn’t want to go. And got the same result.

“What they were effectively saying to me was, ‘You make up your mind boss’. The good thing about that group of boys was if I said something they would try to do it.”

Three hours later McGuire watched the man who he’d poached from the West Coast a decade earlier hold court in the Palladium Room in what he would later describe as the coach’s “finest hour”.

“We don’t want to bunker down,” Malthouse told the Pies faithful in a veiled swipe at St Kilda who had cancelled their function.

If we treat this as a loss – it will be. If we treat this as an opportunity – it will be.
By the time Dale Thomas left Crown Casino he had processed what had happened that afternoon.

“We were as close to losing a grand final as you could come without actually losing one,” Thomas said.

“Mick gave a great speech saying this isn’t round two, it’s halftime and there was a sense that we’d dodged a massive bullet.”

The function made the most sense to Ball who knew it was a good for him to be distracted for a few hours in the company of teammates and family.

“The alternative would have been to go home and think about what happened too much, have individuals think about things they could have done better,” Ball said.

“The fact we were able to go back to the club to do recovery and put it to bed by Sunday, I think that was advantageous.”

Brendon Goddard was thinking too much. His mind was racing all night about what might have been and it kept coming up with the same outcome.

“They were cooked. Another 10 minutes we win, another 30 seconds we win.”




HEARTBREAK AND HAMMYS


LEON Davis was on his way back from Shepparton when he saw his coach’s name flashed up on his phone.

He’d been dreading the call.

It was the Thursday before the Grand Final replay and he’d taken the opportunity to visit his daughter on the players’ day off.

The pair had a great relationship so as soon as Malthouse told him he was being dropped, Davis’ instinct was to put the coach’s mind at ease.

“I understood it, I didn’t really do nearly enough in the drawn game to warrant a spot the next week,” Davis said.



“I told him, ‘Look I understand it, I’ll come to training and I’ll be upbeat’. Being at the club for as many years as I was, I was pretty well known around the boys.

“I got on well with all the boys so the last thing I wanted to do was let them see me shitty and pissed off about not getting a game. I would get to training, put in the work and be my usual self which is to joke around and be happy.”

Davis was able to quickly put his axing into perspective because compared to what he’d had to deal with during his life and what his family had been through as first nation people, missing a game of football didn’t register.

“I have always been one to know that football isn’t everything and there is life outside of footy,” he said.

Footy doesn’t last forever.
Malthouse had decided to go with Tyson Goldsack, who would provide more defensive cover, while his desire to pick Simon Prestigiacomo was again thwarted by the man himself.

“I thought with the extra week he’d be over it but he just said: ‘I’m not ready. I’ll let you down’.”

While the dropping of Davis had weighed on his mind for most of the week, the Pies coach was comforted by the fact he had a sense that St Kilda had a lot more worries than he did.

A quote from Lyon in the media had pricked Malthouse’s interest.

“Ross Lyon is a very cagey coach. It’s a bit like China watch, you listen to what they say and you try to interpret it,” Malthouse said.



“There was an interview with him where he said, ‘This game could be played on Sunday, the AFL have got full rights to change the date and make it on Sunday if they need to’.

“I thought that’s the China watch, that is enough for me to know that they’re sore.”

He was on the money with the Saints, forced to recall some of their VFL players to make up numbers at training. Ruckman Michael Gardiner was definitely out with a hamstring injury but there were plenty of others who were secretly hiding issues, including Justin Koschitzke, Clint Jones and Steven Baker.

Dal Santo was oblivious to the extent of the problem, he knew he felt better and was convinced the replay was going to play into St Kilda‘s hands.

“I honestly thought walking off the ground we were a better chance to win the replay than we probably were the first one,” he said.

“We were a mature group, we have been through this before, we were mentally tough, been through a lot together, ups and downs and I thought the Pies had their chance in that first one and missed it.

“I thought, ‘Yep, this is our fairytale story, we’ve waited since ‘66 to win it and we’re going to get the job done in an unusual circumstance’.”






THE SMOTHER THAT SHOOK A CITY
IT was deja vu. Collingwood was going to score the opening goal of the Grand Final inside the opening 30 seconds again.

Pendlebury had found Travis Cloke alone in the goalsquare but as he was walking back to take the easy shot there was a flurry of activity back at centre half-forward.

A free-kick had been awarded to St Kilda’s tagger Jones after an altercation with Swan.

“I hit him in the face and they saw it,” Swan said.

“They took the ball off Travy and for a split second I was like, ‘F--k if we lose by a kick here they’re going to run me out of Collingwood’.”

He didn’t have to worry for too long. Four minutes later the Pies had the opening goal and again like a week earlier it came from an unlikely source.

Goldsack had just come on the ground and ran straight into the forward line to receive a pass from Cloke. He went back and slotted the goal, which brought a smile to the face of Davis sitting in the stands.

The Magpies had hit the ground running again but they were only two goals up when St Kilda executed a tactical move they’d worked on since the draw.

Lyon figured the Saints needed to find a way to score more so a plan to break through Collingwood,s team defence was devised.

They needed to get out the back of them more so instead of the high half-forwards like Leigh Montagna playing as an extra midfielder, they were to try to get forward of the ball more.

With five minutes to go in the first term, Montagna found space at half-forward and sent a long handball to Adam Schneider.

He quickly executed a right-foot chip to Riewoldt who’d charged forward and was alone at the top of the goalsquare.

It was exactly how they’d drawn it up on the whiteboard during the week.

Except they didn’t have Heath Shaw executing the perfect smother.



The Pies defender had come from five metres behind and just as Riewoldt was releasing the ball to go onto his boot on the goal line, Shaw managed to knock it away.

A sense of deflation spread through the Saints and even though it was still early in the game, Goddard had serious concerns.

“Not long into it I got a sense that we were a bit off mentally,” he said.

“Just making slow decisions, being maybe only half-a-second off.”

At halftime the margin was similar to the previous week – this time 27 points – but the rooms were completely different.

Collingwood’s nervousness from the first Grand Final wasn’t there while the Saints belief – which had launched that extraordinary comeback – was trying to be manufactured again, but sadly everyone in the room sensed the well was dry.

“Mentally everyone was shot,” Goddard said.

“If we hadn’t lost in ‘09 I think we would have been in with a better shot in the replay.

“It felt like we had climbed the mountain again and then to have to come back and do it again the next week, it was too much.

The mental toll of ‘09 and then going through another Grand Final and putting everything into that for no result. We just couldn’t get ourselves up for the replay.
Malthouse wasn’t letting up and made a move at halftime which he said summed up what was a special group of players.

“I gave my halftime speech and then just before they ran down the race I got hit by a brick,” he said.

“I called Swanny back from the race and I said ‘I want you to tag Goddard, I‘ll let you know when to drop it but I want you to tag Goddard because I didn’t want him back in the game’.”

Goddard was definitely the one giving the Saints a pulse with 19 possessions, but Swan was many things; the Pies midfield general, a prolific ball winner who had been favourite for the Brownlow Medal . . . but a tagger?

“He said ‘Yeah, sure boss’. Swanny just listens to what I ask and tell him,” Malthouse said.

“Then I said: ‘Listen I know one thing that will happen, if you’ve got him and you can get forward on him he won’t pick you up’.”

Six minutes into the third quarter, the man then known as Harry O‘Brien bombed it deep into Collingwood’s forward line where a large pack contested.

The ball fell to the front where Swan was waiting. He calmly took three steps forward and drilled the goal. It gave his side a 46-point lead.

Game over.


In the end it was 56 points, which was Collingwood’s greatest winning margin of its 15 premiership victories.

Pendlebury won the Norm Smith Medal with 29 disposals and 11 tackles but there were heroes everywhere.

Thomas had been enormous again with 27 touches and a goal, while the only teenager on the ground, Steele Sidebottom, kicked two goals – as did Sharrod Wellingham, Chris Dawes, Brent Macaffer and Alan Didak.

Young key defenders Nathan Brown and Ben Reid had kept Riewoldt and Koschitzke to one goal between them, while Ball had enjoyed his afternoon a lot better than a week earlier, with 25 quality touches.

McGuire was in tears in the stands, while Davis was one of the first out on the ground to celebrate – although he’d made a significant decision about how he’d do it.

“I didn’t want to touch the premiership cup. I wanted to win one the next year,” Davis said.

“It’s something I did personally that not many people know about. Not once did I touch the premiership cup.”

THE CATALYST FOR CHANGE
MARK Evans had been at both grand finals as an interested observer in his role as Hawthorn’s football manager.

He didn’t expect that five-and-a-half years later he would be the man who would kill off the Grand Final draw.

Despite the controversy surrounding the Collingwood-St Kilda result, there was no directive to address the issue of the draw, which had only happened three times in the league’s history – 1948, 1977 and 2010.



And it almost didn’t happen with Evans, who moved over to the AFL as football operations boss in 2013, recalling the draw debate was a by-product of a discussion with clubs about a number of issues.

“It came out of consultation with the clubs when we were talking about the trade period and the draft, the question was asked about what would happen if there is a draw,” Evans recalls.

“We were talking about a whole lot of stuff and in the end I just put it up – why don’t we conclude it on the day?

I remember someone saying to me, ‘Don’t you like money?’.
“I said it had nothing to do with money and more about how exciting it would be to have a draw and then go to extra time.”

Evans also pointed out how none of the Grand Final replays had been good games, with the physical and mental toll of the first game usually impacting on the contest seven days later.

“With the professionalism of all the things the AFL did we concluded it just made more sense and was a better climax to the season.”

Evans prepared a report for the AFL Commission, who signed off on it with chairman Mike Fitzpatrick announcing the change in April, 2016.

If the scores were still tied at the end of the second period, the siren wouldn’t ring until the next score, which would decide the flag.

Evans has been asked numerous times how he will feel when there is a draw again on the last Saturday in September.

“I just say it will go down as the most epic Grand Final in the history of the game.”

 

[Jen2310]

Going ...

Going ...

Dane Swan celebrates the match-sealing goal.

The Pies lift the cup after the game.

 

[Doc1763]

Just about to post it now Haha.

Thanks Jen, you're a legend!!!

 

[Jen2310]

 

[TradeDraft]

God the Club is run by idiots.

Can't see us getting any better then and keep going backwards

 

[HFF]

The club always gets rid of the people who make a difference to our fortunes.

we keep the same old trash like Nathan’s best mate Sanderson and get rid of a bloke who had a huge impact in 18 when he arrived.

It’s a boys club.
Shambles.

 

[TradeDraft]

The club always gets rid of the people who make a difference to our fortunes.

we keep the same old trash like Nathan’s best mate Sanderson and get rid of a bloke who had a huge impact in 18 when he arrived.

It’s a boys club.
Shambles.

Sport On. It's a Boys Club and not a Football Team

 

[davywap]

Yes buddah was clearly going to be our saviour

 

[Robroy22]

Yes buddah was clearly going to be our saviour

Nah mate, that was Tapping....and Longmuir.