Smith unleashed his long bomb at the four-minute mark of the final quarter.
At the time, the Hawks led by 11 points, but Fremantle had clawed to within three points late in the third term and neither team had kicked a goal in the last quarter.
Smith looked highly unlikely to score the term's first major when he marked on the lead outside the Hawks' forward 50.
He told AFL.com.au his first instinct had been to pass to a teammate closer to goal, but when he looked inside the 50m arc he saw only a flood of white and purple.
So he took teammate Shaun Burgoyne's advice to "go back and slot it".
Smith was confident he had "the leg" to get the distance, even if he normally practised shots from that far out on the run.
But he was also mindful of how difficult the blustery conditions at the MCG were that day. He couldn't remember anyone else kicking a goal from more than 45m and he remembered all too well his own miss from 25m in the first quarter.
"I probably dropped the ball a little bit too high and it sort of blew out of my hand," Smith said of his miss.
As he ran in to take his kick, Smith told himself he was more accurate in front of goal when he had to give a shot "the full leg".
Any remaining doubts he harboured vanished in the instant the ball hit his boot.
"To tell you the truth as soon as it came off my boot I knew it had gone through – you can just tell sometimes," Smith said.
"I didn't even look at the ball go through the goals. It felt good off the boot, I watched it for a bit and thought, 'Geez, that's sweet'.
"Then I just took off and carried on like a goose. Luckily a big gust of wind didn't come by at that moment."
Smith's goal might have put the Hawks up by just 17 points, but at the time you sensed it was a blow from which Fremantle would not recover.
At the very least, it must have been deflating for the Dockers.
On a day when they had squandered chance after chance in front of goal, Smith steps up and makes the game's toughest set shot look easy.
It certainly energised the Hawks. They kicked the next two goals, through Luke Breust and Bradley Hill, and by the 14-minute mark led by a game-high 31 points.
Although the Dockers kicked the game's last two goals, they were still 15 points adrift at the final siren.
Despite delivering at such an important moment in the year's biggest game, Smith has hardly thought about his heroics since.
"As a kid growing up I remember watching Grand Finals and you'd see things like that happen – the big moments – and I used to talk about them all the time," he says.
"But to tell you the truth you hardly talk about it. Obviously on the night there was a bit of talk, but even then there were so many other big plays during the game as well.
"I'm sure I'll enjoy talking about it over a beer in 20 years or so, but AFL footy moves on so quickly these days.
"We're all about 2014 now."
Twitter: @AFL_Nick
