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If you’re a footy fan, you dream of nights like Geelong had on Thursday.
Going in with arguably your best player, and a five-time All-Australian, a last-minute scratching, to a final on the road against a team on a six-game winning streak, one of them a 112-point dismantling over the only team above them on the ladder. Being spoken of as the team most likely to bow out in straight sets, with a dangerous elimination final opponent waiting them.
And giving all the doubters the middle finger to completely and utterly demolish the most red-hot of foes, on hostile territory, virtually from start to finish, to book a home preliminary final and make $9 odds for the flag heading in look extremely silly in the process.
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For supporters of 17 other clubs, this would be a performance to live long in the memory, a replay to be dusted off and put on whenever winter gloom sets in, a game to think back on and smile when the inevitable dark days arrive.
Trust me – my team’s thumping win over Port Adelaide at the Adelaide Oval in a big final is still one of the most magnificent things I’ve ever seen in my life.
The problem for the Cats is that not only are those dark days basically finishing tenth with 11 wins instead of 15 or 16, but that this is a club with about half a dozen of these famous, earth-shaking wins that us idiots barracking for other teams spend decades yearning for.
This was Geelong’s 14th finals victory under Chris Scott, at a nice round average of one per season. I’d argue that none, not even the two premierships, have summed up the team and the club he leads more than this one.
Were Port pathetic? Unquestionably so. But at every turn, the Cats made them look poor.
They made the Power appear as if they were playing on a field buried beneath two feet of wet cement by playing with a freakish, ferocious speed from contests, slamming the ball inside 50 to dangerous spots before their opponents could blink, never mind set up.
They made Port look woeful by foot and hand with all-encompassing pressure, plus a classic Cats defensive set-up behind the ball that looked more imposing the longer the night went on, especially in the air.
They made the Power’s pressure appear second-rate, their tackling SANFL-standard and their desire all but nonexistent with the most remarkable kicking display I’ve seen all year.
Central to the carnage were the ‘three Musketeers’, a trio of outstanding, natural footballers who defy the suggestion that AFL teams only recruit athletes these days by being both quick and superbly skilled.
The most remarkable of the threesome is Shaun Mannagh; not least because, 11 games into an AFL career that only began at age 26, it’s a moment he surely must have thought would never come when overlooked, now somewhat inexplicably, for near on a decade’s worth of drafts.
It was apparent for anyone who watched his six-goal haul, several of them pearlers, in last year’s VFL grand final knew this was a player with the skills and pace to succeed at AFL level… if he arrived at the right club to harness his strengths.
Geelong does this better than any team I can remember; where Sydney of the 2000s and mid-2010s turned AFL-level journeymen into key cogs, the Cats do the same with the forgotten, the underrated, the overlooked.
And from Lawson Humphries going at 100 per cent by foot up to half time, through to Tom Atkins in midfield, another mature-aged rookie success story who clamped Jason Horne-Francis at the stoppages, and up to Mannagh roaming with menace at half-forward, this team is so, so much more than the sum of its parts.
The stat line of this man whom no one wanted, this 26-year old who has worked his entire life to become an overnight sensation? 23 disposals, 18 kicks – second-most on the ground – seven inside 50s (behind only Patrick Dangerfield), a game-high 13 score involvements, five tackles, and three direct goal assists.
If Holmes beat him for best-afield honours, it was a damn close-run thing.
Almost as good a story is Close, a one-time rookie who has been an integral, unflashy part of a terrific team since he kicked a goal with his first touch at the top level on a miserable night in Perth at the height of the COVID pandemic.
Close is pretty much the Aramis of this trio – he’s the one you forget, with Miers’ dazzling All-Australian calibre kicking and the power of Mannagh’s story consistently dominating the headlines this year. But the long-sleeved Cat is a master of doing the unheralded, team-first things that every good side does in abundance?
Need a smart, sensible kick from the wing to half-forward? Close is your guy. Need a smart crumber at ground level inside 50, a tackling small, an intelligent presence as a loose man at stoppages? Brad’s your man.
He’d finish with 11 score involvements, behind only Mannagh, Dangerfield and Jeremy Cameron on the ground. Two of them were goal assists. Considering he had 15 disposals, that’s a frankly extraordinary ratio.
Miers is the best of the three; the quintessential modern footy half-forward, he’s proved such an incredible player over the last few years that Scott now even entrusts him to move as a midfielder around the ground, even into defence. It’s pretty remarkable that such a meticulous coach is fine for a forward with forward’s instincts to roam into a part of the ground where those traits need to be reined in for the good of the team.
Miers spent more time up the field against the Power, with his score involvement numbers dropping down to ‘only’ six, about half what Close and Mannagh managed from further afield.
But his disposals were crisp, clear and always creative; his work as the extra at stoppages crucial with three clearances; and with six tackles, only Rozee had more – and any Power tackle stat needs the asterisk that features the amount of the night they spent chasing tail.
And yet despite all that, he still had time for three goals as well.
It’s remarkable that the inside 50 count ended up being 57-53 in the Cats’ advantage. A ratio of 38 scores to 53 times in attack – from 67 per cent of their entries, the second-best by any team in 2024 – is frankly obscene.
And no one contributed more to that butchering than the brilliantly skilled, electrically paced, whip-smart Musketeer trio.
With Tom Stewart, and his penchant for starting at centre bounces and then easing back behind the ball to intercept at will, withdrawn at the last minute through either illness or continued hamstring problems, depending on your level of faith in the Cats’ reporting of their injuries, Scott decided to change tack around stoppages.
Consistently, one of Mannagh, Close or Miers would push up to stoppages to create an outnumber, and then work ferociously into space forward of the ball if and when the Sherrin was won, baffling a Port defence down on some experienced heads and repeatedly shown up over the years when the going gets tough.
There was one perfect example of how well this worked all night in the first quarter: starting at a stoppage on the broadcast side wing, Mannagh helps the Cats win the ball, watches them go laterally with Port set up well behind the ball; and then bobs up uncontested in the forward pocket fifteen seconds later, having sprinted a good 100 metres to get on the end of it.
Port’s loose behind the ball, Darcy Byrne-Jones – the defender-cum-forward switched back into his original role to cover for the absence of Dan Houston and Kane Farrell – was all at sea: as he was, to be honest, for most of the night. He was far from alone, and 19 disposals suggests on the stat line his evening was reasonable; but it seems Hinkley forgot that part of the reason he was switched forward so successfully midway through 2023 was his beginning to resemble a stunned mullet in the backline.
The Cats, by midway through the last quarter, led Port 57-21 in scores from stoppages. They butchered Horne-Francis, Rozee, Wines, Butters (for a half), Drew… all without Stewart, with a late-career Dangerfield, a bunch of youngsters, and a small forward trio who outshone them all.
The Power had no answer all night for any of Miers, Close or Mannagh, with only the former’s subbing midway through the last quarter offering some respite – but by that point, the Cats’ dominance extended to all facets and Port’s hiding officially of the ‘to nothing’ variety.
It was another embarrassing September moment for Ken Hinkley and his men, one sure to have the pressure amped up to 11 heading into another home final and a chance to make amends next Friday night. The one consolation is that this was a display so grim a physical, animated response is virtually a given (God help Hinkley if they put in another stinker), and that things literally can’t get worse from here.
But I hope, in the commotion to come about the Power’s horror show, that enough respect to the Cats is afforded – both to their outstanding, mesmerising performance at the Adelaide Oval, and the magnificent club that conjured it.
Shaun Mannagh celebrates a goal with Jack Bowes. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
It’s a victory for the scouts who saw the potential of Humphries when he was floating between WAFL seniors and reserves last year; for the coaches who took charge of Mannagh during his months-long VFL stint this year and turned him into a legitimate point of difference in an already great team’s September run; for Scott himself, whose tactical tweak at stoppages caught the Power on the back foot and contributed an enormous amount to the carnage that ensued.
For Geelong, a win like this might be par for the course right now. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t look on with admiration, fear, and plenty of jealousy, and wish our club was as professional, as well-run, as disciplined, as skilled, as good, as this one has been now for 18 years and counting.
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