Harry Taylor, bookies and Usain Bolt: reflections on a cracking grand final

By CHARLES HAPPELL

• St Kilda had its chances; Geelong got out of jail. At one point midway through the third quarter, the Saints had entered the forward-50 42 times to Geelong’s 20. Normally, that sort of lopsided count is reflected on the scoreboard. Not this time.
• St Kilda’s stifling, suffocating tactics worked a treat in the wet for three quarters; Geelong tried to play dry-weather football and their over-possession at times cost them dearly.
• When it counted, Geelong’s champions came to the fore: Paul Chapman, Gary Ablett, Joel Corey, Corey Enright and Jimmy Bartel gathered 39 possessions between them in the final term.
• For the Saints, Schneider x 2, Milne and McQualter produced four costly – and critical – misses from inside 35 metres.
• The umpires were far too prominent – for my liking anyway. Players were given free kick after free kick in the forward line. There was too much inconsistency, too, in the deliberate out of bounds ruling. Tom Hawkins got lucky when his second-quarter snap clearly hit the post. Luckily, the Cats didn’t get up by fewer than six points. At the other end,  Darren Milburn was penalised for abuse by Stephen McBurney: a Schneider goal was the result. Thankfully, the Cats didn’t get pipped by fewer than six points.
• Paul Chapman was a deserving Norm Smith Medal winner but Harry Taylor was very unlucky to miss out. Sure, the conditions favoured defenders – as the TV commentators pointed out ad nauseum – but Taylor had the toughest job on the ground, and carried it out with aplomb. Running around in the midfield is a walk in the park compared to the responsibility of taking on the opposition’s best player and go-to man. Yet he barely gave Riewoldt a sniff. A grand game from the sometimes-maligned No.7.
• (BTW, a question about the Norm Smith voting. Chapman was awarded BOG from three judges – John Worsfold, Jason Dunstall and Nathan Buckley – yet did not poll a vote from the other two – Gerard Healy and Gerard Whateley. So 40% of the voting panel did not have Chapman in their best three players. Jason Gram finished with the same tally of votes as Chapman – 9 – yet polled votes from all five judges – 3,2,2,1,1.  Which player was the more deserving of the gong then – the bloke who caught the eye of all five judges, or the bloke who won votes from just three? And, given that it was such a line-ball decision, why wasn’t there a joint award?)
• Having said that, Max Rooke, James Kelly, Joel Corey, Gary Ablett and James Bartel were also worthy of honorable mentions. For the Saints, Gram, Lenny Hayes, Steven Baker and Brendon Goddard were excellent.
• Steve Johnson will not be in a hurry to watch a replay of the game, nor will Steve Milne. The two enigmatic small forwards, and wayward genii, had absolute shockers.
• Spare a thought for the gallant Saints. Beaten three times in a stellar 25-match season by a grand total of 19 points, and still no cigar. Barry Breen and the 1966 premiership will have currency for at least another year.
• The final goal, slotted through after the siren by Max Rooke, might have been meaningless in the context of the game – Geelong didn’t care whether it won by six points or 12 – but bookmakers and punters might not have been so sanguine about the score. For some bookies – Centrebet being one of them – offered a price on the total match score being above, or below, 145 points in aggregate. It was 142 points before Rooke’s kick, and 148 points after it had skidded through the goals, meaning some punters who bet on the low score got dudded.
• Amid the gracious victory speeches from Geelong captain Tom Harley and coach Mark Thompson – who both paid tribute to St Kilda, and conceded the Cats might have been a tad lucky to get over the line – we had Matthew Scarlett, Geelong’s long-standing boor-in-chief, saying the Cats had deserved their win and this result made them one of the greatest sides in history. A small tip, Scarlo: leave that sort of pronouncement to others. That call, coming from you minutes after the final siren, made you look like a smug jerk.
• Olympic sprint sensation Usain Bolt, who had been touted as the half-time entertainment, made the best decision of his short career by staying home in Jamaica; Melbourne’s weather today was only good for twanged hamstrings and pneumonia.