Some people go to the footy because they love the noise. Some go to see the clashing of bodies and the spilling of blood. Some go to see Taylor Walker kick an impossible goal or a young buck like Phil Davis take on and conquer brilliant Buddy Franklin.

I go to see magic, and I saw it on Saturday night.

I don’t mean special effects, or illusion, or a rabbit out of a hat. I mean the moment when a team clicks, when it becomes greater than the sum of its parts, and when footy becomes poetry and food for the soul.

From the Crows’ point of view, the first half provided little nourishment. Our blokes looked like plodders compared with nippy Hawthorn. We lost the Porp within minutes and the likes of Walker, Vince, Dangerfield and Douglas gave us little.

Usually reliable players overcooked their kicks and otherwise clanged like a railway crossing. By half-time I was thinking train-wreck.

When the siren sounded for the long break I made a dash to the car park to check that the car hadn’t been towed (okay, I’d parked slightly illegally). A flyer for a massage parlour had been pinned under a wiper blade. I put it in my pocket: the stress I was feeling, maybe I’d need a little massage magic after the game.

The second half started poorly. I checked the flyer for a phone number. Within a minute the Hawks had had two shots at goal.

But the Crows got lucky: both shots hit the post. Then, like stars in the dusk, the youngsters started to emerge.

McKernan took a contested mark and played on. Sloane did good work to get it to Walker, who took a long shot and it sailed through about half-post height.

Dangerfield was out-marked but intercepted the resulting kick. He set it up for Knights, who deployed his deadly left foot for a second consecutive goal.

Davis beat Franklin in a one-on-one. McKernan got the ball to Smith, who bounced it a couple of times and kicked to the hot spot. Walker picked up the spill, took a few giant strides to the goal square, and roosted the ball into the top of the northern stand. It seemed to ride on the roar of the crowd.

The Crows were only two points behind. As Gandalf might have said had the game been played in Middle Earth, it was the turning of the tide.

Now the slick handballs were working, the one-on-ones were going the Crows’ way, and the kicks were finding their targets. Before our eyes, the new boys - McKernan, Smith and Tambling - transformed from question marks into exclamations.

Dangerfield ignited his after-burners and showed the poise of a man starting to understand his game, van Berlo imposed himself and Sloane created.

But more than any individual effort, it was the gleam of the team that caught my eye. Twenty-one formerly bumbling players were now in harmony, backing each other, running to support, shepherding, spoiling, chasing, tackling, flinging themselves at the ball.

The whole had become more than the sum of its parts. This is what I had come to see - the wizardry that happens when a team coalesces, when youngsters decide that they belong, when brave men start hurling their bodies into the line of fire for the sake of their mates, when potential transforms into spectacular deeds, when success begets confidence, which begets success.

When the crowd starts believing in magic.

Sarrey would like you to like his Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sarreys-Blog/103023909750934). He also claims the flyer for the massage parlour eventually went in the bin.