The Cats won by two points after Brad Johnson’s shot after the siren narrowly missed and the Geelong coach singled out his key forward for his “silly” act in striking North Melbourne’s Scott Thompson and earning a one-game suspension.
“I would have done something really brave if we’d have lost the game. Maybe I should do it anyway, I should really have a go at Cameron Mooney because we did miss him enormously,” Thompson said.
“To go out with a silly thing like that, it could have cost the club. Lucky it wasn’t a knockout final but if it was, it would be disastrous because he’s so important to us.”
Thompson said the close match was a superb test for the undefeated Cats but says he was not exactly sitting on the edge of his seat when Johnson walked in to goal.
“In the end I didn’t care whether we’d won or lost. It’s nice to win I suppose and nice that he missed,” he said.
“It would have been a great thing for the Bulldogs to win. To us, we know we didn’t play our best footy and they had more of a chance to win it than us.”
Thompson kept his players behind closed doors immediately after the game to stress the importance of the challenge they had just faced.
“We spoke then about how it is good to play in those really close games and sometimes we don’t always get them,” he said.
“If you play a close game it’s always a good thing. Sometimes you lose them, sometimes you win. Just that moment that you’re living in the last quarter when every little thing you do is so important. Those matches I’ll remember for a while, they’re pretty significant.”
Thompson said the nail-biting match was as much a shakeup for him as a coach as it was for his players.
“I went crazy there a few times, started swearing again. I haven’t sworn for years. It exposes you to the pressures that you need to be exposed to. I don’t think you need to do it every week because it’s a pretty difficult job. Every now and then it’s great. It was great tonight, I enjoyed it.”
