After two straight losses to start the
season, things weren’t looking good at the Cattery. But Hawthorn and Fremantle
are one thing, and a Gold Coast side who have so far posted losses to Melbourne
and St. Kilda are another.
The home side began kicking towards the
Gary Ablett Terrace end of the ground; the irony being the withdrawal of Ablett
fils due to his recurring shoulder
injury. Two opening goals to Josh Walker (in for Tom Hawkins) and Darcy Lang
gave the false impression that Geelong were on top, and the Gold Coast’s Jarrod
Garlett provided the highlight of the quarter when he arrested the Cats’
momentum by going on a four-bounce run for a goal. Steven Motlop responded by
creating a seven-point play from a wayward Suns kick-in, but the visitors would
kick the next three majors, aided by their domination of the centre clearances.
This had Chris Scott going bananas in the
coach’s box, and matters weren’t helped by Jimmy Bartel getting himself
injured. On came number ten draft pick and archetypal mercurial Territorian
speedster Nakia Cockatoo (pronounced, I have only just discovered, Na-kigh-a
and not Nar-key-a), shedding the bright green vest for the second week running.
The Pivotonians got the next two, the first an end-to-end manoeuvre from the
kick-in finished off by Jackson Thurlow, the second a snap from Walker who
crumbed when the giallorossi defence
had Mitch Clark well covered. But an Aaron Hall supergoal put the Suns up 41-33
at the break, after a rollicking first term in which solid Geelong defensive
work prevented the Gold Coast from further cashing in on their control of the
stoppages.
The centre clearance count was 10-1 in
favour of the pineapple-munchers when Michael Rischitelli opened their account
in the second term. I biancoazzurri
were given a reprieve by the town’s notorious weather; thousands of pivotonians
reached for their brollies in unison as the pace of the game was slowed and
with it the visitors’ momentum. Clark got the next goal, and there was
something of a dry period (if you’ll pardon the pun) until Walker snapped the
one after that. Cockatoo had what the Argentinians call a ‘lyrical moment’,
grabbing a bouncing ball with one hand, running down the wing, and kicking it
inside fifty to no-one in particular; the margin was twelve points at half-time.
Like the Giants against Sydney the previous
evening, les blancs et bleus marines
piled on the goals after the sides returned to the hallowed turf. Walker and
Steve Johnson kicked truly to level the scores, and Corey Enright pulled off a
sensational smother to turn a certain Tom J. Lynch goal into a boundary
throw-in at the far behind post. The man from Kimba combined with Harry Taylor,
Tom Lonergan, and first-year backman Cory Gregson to soak up pressure and hold
the scores at sixty apiece, before a flurry of goals to Josh Caddy, Joel
Selwood, then Caddy again. Selwood had a blinder of a third quarter and Cameron
Guthrie, who switched into a long-sleeved guernsey at the long break, put in a
three-Brownlow-vote-worthy performance with a top-notch display of being
everywhere the T. W. Sherrin happened to be and then some.
Gregson kicked his first league goal from
the centre square to make it six in a row, but the seventeen-point lead the
Cats took into lemon time didn’t seem a big enough buffer given their casualty
list. With Bartel having opted for the très
haute couture red vest look in the first quarter, and Mathew Stokes milling
about the dugout on crutches, the sight of Lonergan being stretchered off after
a collision with six seconds left on the clock had Scott and the home fans
nervous. With nineteen fit players against twenty-one, the final term would be
a test of the veracity of the various claims and counter-claims made over the
last few seasons about interchanges, substitutions, rotations, etc.
Sam Day took an Andrew Strauss slips catch
and opened the scoring for la roja y
amarilla; Gregson responded straight away. By the mid-way point of the
final term, the margin was down to four points after goals to Touk Miller and
Brandon Matera (an ominous surname, given 1992 And 1994 And All That). A shot
from Matt Shaw looked to be sailing through but forced James Kelly to resort to
the hoops’ first rushed behind of the afternoon. After another forward thrust
by the surging and pacy giallorossi,
a turnover at the half-back line was moved upfield through Guthrie, Mitch
Duncan, and Motlop, and the Territorian kicked his second of the match, putting
the home side nine points up and proving that a beer or two in Colac never hurt
anybody.
Geelong tried to kill the clock by forcing
stoppages but could only keep it up for a minute and a half of regulation time
before Claremontonian midfielder Jack Martin pulled the banana-benders’ deficit
back to three points. There was one minute and twenty-five seconds to go, and
we had the requisite clichéd tense finish. An all-too-rare Cats centre
clearance ended up on the boot of Selwood and Cockatoo saved the day with an
easy mark in or about the fifty-metre arc on a tight angle. A tired Suns outfit
somehow left Mark Blicavs unmarked, providing the substitute with an opportunity
to eat some more clock by chipping the pill to the Lithuanian Marvel, who, in a
manner reminiscent of Ablett père or
Brownless of old, lined up for a set shot and sent the pigskin soaring in the
general direction of the pristine, azure waters of Corio Bay.
Geelong 16.9.105 – Gold Coast 13.18.96
Goals: Walker 4, Caddy 2, Gregson 2, Motlop
2, Blicavs, Clark, Johnson, Lang, Selwood, Thurlow (Geel.); Lynch 3, Martin 3,
Matera 2, Day, Garlett, Hall, Miller, Rischitelli (G. C.)
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