What an amazing Friday night of football at AAMI Stadium. Despite the odds being staked heavily in Geelong’s favour we never stopped trying all night and it was one of the best Crows games I’ve ever been too.
There’s something about the Cats that gets a fire burning in my belly. They’re really good and I find them to be bit annoying when they’ve had the wood over us for the past five years. That fire turned into an explosion of emotion on Friday night.
It was nice to be back in the familiarity of my fellow Crows fans following my trip to Perth the weekend before. The old noise-o-meter was back on the big screen and had the crowd in fine tune before the opening bounce.
Geelong got off to a slightly worrying start kicking the first three goals of the game. With their burst out of the blocks and the umpires’ dubious opening performance my stress levels were already starting to rise through the roof. This was turning into a high-pressure game on and off the field.
Ricky Henderson finally got our first goal, thanks to one of those poor umpiring decision at long last going our way, and Kurt Tippett scored our second by quarter time.
Early in the next term the Cats’ Corey Enright somehow got away with one of the most blatant deliberate out of bounds ever before Taylor Walker scored to put us up by a few points.
Down in defence Scott Stevens was plugging a leaky hole almost to perfection. A superb spoil on Jimmy Bartel and a handful of goal saving marks were highlights.
Geelong regained the lead halfway through the term. With a couple of minutes remaining on the clock Walker brought the crowd to their feet after he nailed a fabulous goal off of two steps in the northern pocket.
In the stands after half time I was waiting for the Cats to pounce and run away with the game. But they didn’t. We were patient with moving the ball forward and didn’t shy away from taking risks. If we needed to hold on to the ball to wait for a better option, we did. If we needed to break fast and move the ball quickly, we did.
A Dangerfield goal from the Tony Hall pocket and a set shot scored by Nathan van Berlo brought us within a whisker of the Cats in the third. Rory Sloane kicked an unexpected goal from 55 metres out, who knew the kid could kick that far, to put us up by four points approaching three quarter time.
The 19th man noise-o-meter was then pushed to its max as the Adelaide chant echoed around the ground. My hands were red from clapping so much and I was just about reaching for the Strepsils after Walker broke a Geelong tackle and sent through his third goal of the night.
As the siren sounded to end the third term the crowd unanimously cheered and stood in ovation. It was a proud moment and no matter what the result was from there on end I’m sure we would have all gone home happy after an outstanding three quarter performance against the top ranked side.
The last quarter began in fine fashion with Walker converting another goal. It then got even better when Henderson kicked an absolute ripper of a goal from the newly claimed Walker/Henderson pocket.
McLeod lobbed a handball over his opponent to a running Ricky Henderson. With Paul Chapman hot on his tail he stepped inside the 50-metre arc and unloaded a perfect right foot kick that sailed the ball right over the goal umpire’s hat.
“Yeah! Go Ricky!” I yelled jumping up and down on my feet. The fans were going nuts fist pumping the air and celebrating with high-fives and hugs. The following cheers were so loud that I struggled to hear the ground announcer informing the crowd of the attendance number.
All of a sudden we had a lead of 21 points but the Cats hadn’t stopped purring just yet. A couple of goals in quick succession brought them back to within nine points. The next 15 minutes or so proved to be a harrowing half a quarter of football until Sloane slotted his second and suddenly a win was in sight.
As the clock on the scoreboard edged towards 30 minutes of play just about every Crows supporter was willing the siren on. “Blow the siren! Blow the siren!” And then it went.
I haven’t seen such joy and jubilation in the stands for a long time. Everyone was up on there feet clapping along to and singing the club song. Neil Craig even showed a little something to the crowd when he was walking into the player’s race.
What a win. We beat the topside at their own game. Our pressure was top notch all night. We forced arguably the most skilful side of the competition to make errors and we successfully stifled their run and carry into the forward line.
While we all love our flashy goal kickers guys like Reilly, who wrapped up Ablett, Johncock, Doughty, Goodwin, Davis and Rutten all played a great game and in fact I’m finding it hard to pick a poor performer in our 11 point upset victory.
Anything is possible as we close in on the closing month of the regular season. I’m not quite ready to mention the F-word (finals) just yet but if we can keep up our competitive spirit we might be in with a chance.
