Something I wrote before the match.
When the Essendon players line up before the first bounce on Friday night they should take a moment to look deep into the eyes of their opponents Geelong. The Cats club song says that Geelong is the greatest team of all and the words mean more than just cliched rhetoric. Here is a club that has built its success, not from early draft or priority picks, not from throwing obscene amounts of money to entice players to stay, not from favors from the AFL, and above all not from embarking on a programme of injecting its players with questionable substances in order to gain an unfair advantage. Geelong's success has been hard earned through shrewd management, skillful recruiting, old fashioned honesty and integrity, and development of a solid culture that is the envy of every other club. It's a top of the ladder clash between two unbeaten sides, and in any other season would be regarded as a blockbuster. But it's not. In any other year 50,000 people, regardless of the result, would walk away from Docklands happy that they have seen the two best teams in the league. But they won't. Why, because one team plays by the rules and the other doesn't. One team is honest, and the other is a cheat. On Friday night every fair minded, football loving neutral will want Geelong to win because every fair minded person likes to see honesty prevail over deceit. It may not happen of course because life has a habit of sometimes not giving us what is fair or just. But anything other than a Cats win will be irrelevant. We know how good Geelong is and how good they have been, but we don't know the level of cheating by Essendon or how it has advantaged them. We know from statistics that they have won six out of six but sadly that statistic has no credibility, and nor would a win this week over the Cats. So Bombers.... look deep into the Cats eyes on Friday night and ask yourselves if, regardless of the result, you deserve to share the same stage with Geelong Football Club.