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Had the pleasure of meeting Brandon and Brodie before the game.
One win away
Twitter
Joffa has called it - the gold jacket is on. Coll 18.12.120 v Geel 10.12.72. 25 mins gone, final term. #aflpiescats
THE symbolism came early, the humiliaton soon followed.
All season Collingwood's defensive attitude was the cornerstone of its campaign and, from the outset on Friday night, it shredded Geelong's confidence and game plan.
As expected, the Pies pressed and the Cats tried to - and were forced to - handball through it. They were besotted with handball. Out the back. No-look. Sideways. And always when in trouble.
It didn't work.
The first goal came about as if scripted by the Magpies.
Gary Ablett, Corey Enright and Harry Taylor flipped the ball about under pressure deep in the Magpies' forward line and Gazza's clearing kick was marked by Harry O'Brien.
Harry played on - how many times have we seen that this year? - and kicked it long to Travis Cloke who marked it, as expected
Match report: Pies leave Cats in starting gates Hamstring injury: Ball hiccup at final bounce Embarrassing loss: Cats far from taking nosedive Gallery: Preliminary finals action Video: Pies turn on style against Cats
Pies leave Cats in starting gates Adelaide Now, 6 hours ago
Collingwood march into grand final Perth Now, 8 hours ago
Game's elite on show The Australian, 3 days ago
Now, bring on the Magpies Adelaide Now, 7 days ago
Malthouse's mix just about perfect The Australian, 8 Aug 2010
What was not expected was Cloke casually slotting the goal from 30m.
At quarter-time, it was 7.2 to 1.1 and an era was over.
The Cats had 44 kicks and 61 handballs compared to Collingwood's 64 and 29.
Every fourth or so possession from Collingwood was an inside-50. By game's end they'd had 56.
Turnovers created in the forward 50m were 26-12 Collingwood's way and they kicked 8.2 to 1.0 as a result.
Overall Collingwood had 33 more effective kicks with 79 fewer disposals.
The Cats had 50 more handballs than kicks and Collingwood 127 more kicks than handballs.
The numbers are spellbinding and they are built on a hard-working attack and a highly-acknowledged defence.
In fact, Collingwood's pressure is something we haven't seen in the game before. They have forged new territory from St Kilda's zone of 12 months ago. They press space and the man and the support network is like a cavalry charging a besieged fort.
It forced handballs, indecision and turnovers.
Geelong had 45 long kicks from 179.
Rarely did Geelong test Collingwood's two inexperienced backmen, Ben Reid and Nathan Brown, by bombing the ball long into James Podsiadly and Cameron Mooney.
And when Mooney led at the ball, Reid's closing speed was sensational. If anything, the young men might have ended Simon Prestigiacomo's career.
As a team, Collingwood had contributors everywhere.
Geelong had one champion everywhere. At times its game plan was simple: Give it to Gary. The little champ had 40 disposals and was tireless.
Geelong won't like reviewing this game. It was indecisive, slow, sloppy, and too often lethargic when more intensity was needed.
Disregard the individual statistics. Joel Corey (30 disposals), Jimmy Bartel (28), Cameron Ling (29) and Steve Johnson (28) don't nearly tell the story.
Ling started on one wing, was switched to the other, and then to Nick Maxwell at half-back. He finished in the midfield. He never gave up but his numbers flatter him. He was better than Joel Corey, though, who played like a 20-year-old in his first final, not a 28-year-old in his 17th.
He was not alone. Collingwood's pressure made fools of many Cats players.
Joel Selwood coughed it up too many times, Paul Chapman was unusually sloppy, Brad Ottens was extraordinarily poor, Bartel was forever set upon, and Alan Toovey made tackling Steve Johnson look like a party trick.
It was total domination from Collingwood and complete humiliation for Geelong.
Sadly, as a contest it was over after 30 minutes.
And so was the dynasty.
The Cats lost last night but they should not be ashamed.
In a period of three years they saved the sport from defensive strangulation.
Sydney and West Coast took football to hand-to-hand combat levels before the Cats introduced "ping" football.
To Geelong and Gazza, thanks for the memories.
GEELONG'S era of greatness came to a shuddering halt, with Collingwood's dominant win over the Cats moving them within one victory of this year's premiership.
In front of a crowd of over 90,000 fans, the Pies systematically destroyed the Cats in a result that will end careers at Geelong.
Regardless of their Grand Final opponent, Collingwood will enter the clash as the hottest of favourites after the most comprehensive win imaginable.
They will play the winner of tonight's St Kilda v Western Bulldogs preliminary final at the MCG.
Collingwood wingman Dale Thomas will sweat on a match review panel report after clashing heavily with Geelong's Harry Taylor.
Former St Kilda midfielder Luke Ball also limped from the game with a tight left hamstring in the third term, and will be Grand Final week's injury poser.
But Mick Malthouse, in the second-last year of his coaching career at Collingwood, now looks on the verge of seizing a third flag.
So paranoid about their poor kicking for goal, the deadly accurate Pies instead kicked 12 goals from their first 16 shots at goal.
Geelong was inept, reactive and outplayed in every facet of the game.
From the moment Travis Cloke slammed through the game's first goal from 30 metres out directly in front, they were under siege.
The Pies ramped up their much-vaunted defensive zone, and under the suffocating pressure the Cats simply wilted.
By quarter-time, after Collingwood had kicked seven goals to just one from Geelong, the margin was 37 points and the game was over.
Gary Ablett was extraordinary, racking up 25 possessions in the first half alone, but he played a lone hand for Geelong.
Darren Milburn has surely played his last game for Geelong, captain Cameron Ling was a liability, and the likes of Joel Corey, Brad Ottens and Matthew Scarlett were exposed.
Ling will have a delayed start to the 2011 season, sure to miss a week for a punch to Leigh Brown's midriff early in the third term.
The Cats will now have to consider whether to overhaul this famed group, with Gary Ablett considered likely to announce his departure from the club this week.
The heroes were everywhere for Collingwood, led by Scott Pendlebury in the engine room and dominant onballers Alan Didak and Dane Swan.
The hype will only ramp up early in the week, with Pies onballer Swan a commanding favourite for the Brownlow Medal on Monday.
SCOREBOARD
COLLINGWOOD 7.2 13.7 16.11 18.12 (120)
GEELONG 1.1 3.5 6.10 11.13 (79)
Goals: Collingwood: T Cloke 3 D Swan 2 S Pendlebury 2 S Sidebottom 2 S Wellingham 2 A Didak B Johnson B Macaffer C Dawes D Beams D Thomas L Brown. Geelong: M Stokes 2 S Byrnes 2 T Varcoe 2 B Ottens C Mooney J Bartel J Podsiadly S Johnson.
Best: Collingwood: Swan, Didak, Wellingham, Pendlebury, Cloke, Brown, Johnson. Geelong: Ablett, Varcoe, Selwood.
Umpires: Shaun Ryan, Ray Chamberlain, Brett Rosebury.
Official Crowd: 95,241 at Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Patrick Carlyon THE chant started in the second quarter, suddenly, the sort of siren call that rises off the terraces of an English soccer stadium.
The Long slow Collingwood chant.
COLLINGWOOD coach Mick Malthouse this week declared that the Colliwobbles - the club's long curse for snatching defeat from victory in the games that matter - was irrelevant.
Fair enough, too, given the haunting dates back to days before any player in his team was conceived.
And the opening quarter of last nights preliminary final against Geelong suggested Malthouse had a point.
Three minutes into the game, exciting yet mercurial forward Travis Cloke slotted a goal.
Then Scott Pendlebury ran into an open goal. Then Sharrod Wellingham goaled. Collingwood led before anyone could stop to consider the implications of such early dominance.
Geelong scrambled as Collingwood controlled.
Geelong defender Matthew Scarlett looked clumsy, perhaps for the first time ever. Teammate Cameron Ling looked slow.
A Leigh Brown off-break goal, which turned more acutely than anything delivered by Shane Warne, implied that any Collingwood curses would, at the least, be delayed until at least next Saturday.
By midway throght he second quarter as a Collingwood soccer-style chant engulfed the ground, it appeared the contest was already over.
The Magpies oozed belief. When Pendlebury kicked his second goal, it made sense that he chose to kick it with his non-preferred foot.
What was seven Collingwood goals felt like 12. The Magpies kept slotting goals in what had been touted beforehand as the "real'' grand final, the clash between the two highest-placed teams.
The MCG would seethe with fans itching to be there, it was said, unlike the other grand final next Saturday, when the ground will swell to corporates and poseurs who are just as committed to the champagne as the contest.
For Geelong, it would be a scrap aimed at prolonging the golden window of success dating back to 2007, of a four-year window of dominance that has yielded two flags.
For Collingwood, last night was supposed to be the start of something.
A 20-year grand final duck - and another three decades before that 1990 premiership - was meant to melt in the face of brash confidence, as was the being defeated twice in the past three years at the second last hurdle of a premiership - by Geelong.
Certainly, the people flocked, and early estimates suggested that the expected 90,000-plus crowd was met.
But the usual jocularity outside the ground was almost absent, as though fans from both teams wore the subdued air of anticipation - or feared disappointment.
Even Joffa, Collinwood cheers squad icon, appeared contemplative outside the Ponsford Stand beforehand well, as thoughtful as one can in a blazing white jacket, anyway.
Branka Pletikapa, mobbed by her Magpie family, explained that Peter McKenna, former Collingwood great, was her primary school teacher.
"He told me I couldn't go up the next grade unless I barracked for Collingwood,'' she said.
"We were migrants, just arrived in Australia. I believed him.''
"It's a formality, just a formality,'' said Peter Christofas, of Blackburn, as his daughter Katerina scoffed.
Dad barracks for Collingwood, daughter for Geelong - in part because she is called Kat, but also because like cats.
One of them was doomed to be disappointed when they got home.
Early signs suggested Dad would be crowing.
Cats fans yelled songs to Gary Ablett, who could have been playing his last game at the club.
"Cats eat birds,'' one observer explained outside the ground.
Hmmm.
The Winners Circle was amazing
Me and the Boss watch the premiership pies go through their paces at training.
joffatocomeoffthebenchi.jpg
Geelong Arrogance
Wont Payback Be a Bitch!
My Good mate Troy West love his passion but sorry Troy it's our turn this year mate.
Collingwood V Geelong
Preliminary Final
Friday Night
MCG
7.40pm
The Team
First Preliminary Final
Collingwood v Geelong
Friday 17 September
MCG, 7:45 PM
Collingwood
B: Nick Maxwell, Nathan Brown, Alan Toovey
HB: Harry O'Brien, Ben Reid, Heath Shaw
C: Sharrod Wellingham, Dane Swan, Ben Johnson
HF: Alan Didak, Travis Cloke, Luke Ball
F: Dayne Beams, Chris Dawes, Steele Sidebottom
Foll: Darren Jolly, Scott Pendlebury, Dale Thomas
Int: Jarryd Blair, Leon Davis, Brent Macaffer, Leigh Brown
Emg: Tarkyn Lockyer, Paul Medhurst, Tyson Goldsack
Milestones: Scott Pendlebury (100 AFL games)
Leon Your Time Has Come
Week Two
In life, things get taken from you. That's a part of life. But, you only learn that when you start losing stuff. You find out life's this game of inches, so is football. Because in either game - life or football - the margin for error is so small. I mean, one half a step too late or too early and you don't quite make it. One half second too slow, too fast and you don't quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They're in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team we fight for that inch. On this team we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when add up all those inches, that's gonna make the difference between winning and losing! Between living and dying! I'll tell you this, in any fight it's the guy whose willing to die whose gonna win that inch. And I know, if I'm gonna have any life anymore it's because I'm still willing to fight and die for that inch, because that's what living is, the inches are right in front of your face. Now, You've got to look at the guy next to you, look into his eyes. Now I think ya going to see a guy who will go that inch with you. Your gonna see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team, because he knows when it comes down to it your gonna do the same for him. That's a team, gentlemen, and either, we bond, now, as a team, or we will die as individuals. That's football.
Good Old Collingwood Forever.
V
The creeping Tipster says
Pies by 1 Point
Joffa Says
Pies by 10 Goals
The Number 19 Tram to Nth Coburg
Pies by a Mile
The lemon tree in my backyard
Pies by 43
All's well for Pies
Magpies not resting
Waxing duo has Pies shining
Pencil in Pies vs Saints
Swan pockets MVP award
Former Pie Bryan joins Tampa Bay
Swan says no heat for Pies
O'Bree confirms retirement
Mick hits the net
Surprise Magpies
Magpies fly from back
Shaw flags premiership winner
Eddie's grand plans for Magpies fans
Shaw full of belief
The main event: Pies and Cats
How do you stop Dane Swan?
Books keep Pies tight
Pies hopeful of key duo
I want crucial kick: Cloke
Cloke commits to Pies
Cats play with minds
The Geelong Supporter
Good things come in small packages, like Jarryd Blair
JARRYD Blair shakes his head and laughs when asked how many times in his life he's been told he was too small.
"I couldn't even guess, it's been that many," Blair said.
"I've heard it a bit and you get used to it. As a kid, people would ask what you want to do and I'd say, 'I want to play footy', and they'd always come back with, 'Well, you'd want to start growing mate'.
"I would just brush it off and keep plugging away."
That plugging away has got him a spot in the best team in the land with the 20-year-old already Collingwood's fairytale story of September.
The smallest player at the Pies is listed at 174cm in the AFL Media Guide but there is conjecture at the Westpac Centre about that figure.
"He might be 174cm if he sticks his arms in the air," one club insider said. "Seriously, he could possibly be the smallest player ever.
"And imagine if we played Fremantle and (Aaron) Sandilands fell on him, we could have a suffocation in the middle of the MCG."
Blair was listed as 172cm - the same height as North Melbourne champion Brent Harvey - when he played for the Gippsland Power a couple of years back.
Former St Kilda and Brisbane Lions player Danny Craven is the smallest of recent times at 162cm, while Brownlow medallist Tony Liberatore is 163cm.
It didn't take long for Blair's teammates to find a suitable nickname, with Blair dubbed "The Aardvark" after the African ant-eating mammal.
He points to childhood hero, Hawthorn great Shane Crawford, as evidence that height doesn't matter.
"I grew up idolising blokes like Shane Crawford (174cm) and height wasn't an issue for him," he said.
"Still, I have to pinch myself about where I'm at. To break into the side and stay in has been exciting."
So who is the Magpies new cult hero in the No.47 jumper?
He was born in Melbourne but moved with his parents, Neil and Judy, to Wonthaggi when he was seven months old with the family taking over a fast-food store which they ran for 16 years.
Like most country kids, he grew up playing many sports and was more than handy with the tennis racquet.
But football was his first love and he had bloodlines on his side.
His uncle, John Blair, played 33 games for South Melbourne, Fitzroy and St Kilda from 1975-80 before coaching successfully in Queensland.
On his mother's side, his grandfather John "Bones" O'Mahoney played 112 games from 1951-60 with Hawthorn and later became an assistant coach and chairman of selectors at Glenferrie Oval.
It was obvious early in his days with Gippsland that Blair had the goods required to overcome his height deficiency and blossomed under the guidance of a couple of former AFL stars, Adrian Hickmott and Austinn Jones.
"He's just a beauty," Gippsland Power's regional manager Peter Francis says.
"You never die wondering with him. He's an absolute ripper. He was always going to make it because he was just so determined to make sure he got there.
"He just left no stone unturned with his preparation and I just thought he'd make it, he just needed the opportunity."
Blair's breakthrough year was 2008 when he tied for the Morrish Medal - the U/18 competition's best and fairest award - with another rover, 172cm Farran Priest.
The problem for Blair was the track record of winners over recent years at the draft table hadn't been good. Only one of the past six winners has made it to the AFL and that was Carlton ruckman Matthew Kreuzer in 2007.
"The old Morrish is a bit of a poisoned chalice sometimes," he said.
He wasn't drafted in the 2008 national draft but snared a spot on Collingwood's rookie list and impressed in the VFL last year, averaging 20-plus disposals in the midfield.
Magpies recruiting chief Derek Hine said that apart from height, Blair had all the attributes to make the big time.
"He's playing exactly the same way now as to when he was down at Gippsland," Hine said. "What you see is what you get with him. He's just a natural player.
"While his straight-line speed is not at the very high end, his lateral movement in close is just extraordinary. He has got a really nice step on him where he actually finds space, whereas other players sort of drive out of traffic and use their speed.
"Jarryd has got that ability to have that really quick step that gets himself into space so he can execute by hand or by foot. And the one thing with him is that he's a player who, if he has the ball, then the team retains the ball.
"He's tough, his touch is terrific, he never fumbles. The only thing he hasn't got is height."
But what he has in spades is personality, which immediately endears him to people.
"He is an infectious character and is really well liked from everyone within the football club, whether it be the president down to the doorman," Hine said.
Blair was promoted mid-season and played his first game against West Coast in Round 14, collecting 16 disposals and five tackles. He had a career-high 28 and kicked two goals against Essendon in Round 20.
A key statistic from the qualifying final explains why he is keeping some big names out of the team. Blair had six score assists against the Bulldogs, the most recorded in a final (score assists have been recorded since 2003).
assistant coach Mark Neeld said Blair was not intimidated by the people around him and stuck to his role every week.
"Everyone knows the way Mick Malthouse goes about it," Neeld says. "It's about know your role, play your role.
"Whatever role Mick gives Blairy, he plays it to the best of his ability.
"That is the beauty of him, his contested football is good and his workrate is good when we don't have the ball. He certainly deserves his spot.
"While he has got things to work on, he is really aware of what he can and can't do and shapes his game accordingly."
With Collingwood hysteria growing, Blair hopes he can continue to keep a low profile and add to his nine games.
"You can't get too ahead of yourself, there is a lot of competition for spots so I just take it one week at a time and hopefully you're still there when it matters," he said.
"I've been able to be pretty low key and, to be honest, I don't know whether I want them (Magpie fans) to figure out who I am."
