IN THE minutes after Geelong players, officials and powerbrokers returned to their dressing rooms under the MCG arena after securing the 2022 premiership, the normally disguised emotions emerged.

The bludgeoning of Sydney may have made these reflective moments obvious from as early as late in the first quarter, but when they actually arrive, hardened people who have, or feel they must have, ice running through their veins, suddenly have voices which start to break and eyes which become watery.

Success has been demanded at this club like no other club. And that has left its people vulnerable to oh-so-typical outside criticism when falling short in daring to achieve the ultimate glory. Too old, too slow, too nearly-good-enough without actually being good enough.

Success is very difficult to achieve in the AFL. Equalisation policies. Salary caps. Soft caps. Mindset caps. Compensation picks in national drafts. For the often deliberately perennially poorly performed organisations, there have been copout reasons to not try, sometimes for several consecutive seasons. For those clubs, a misguided belief that choosing to bottom-out will guarantee a bright future.

This type of weakness of thought and outlook has never been the Geelong Football Club way. Certainly not for coach Chris Scott, his players and CEO Steve Hocking. Which is why, on Saturday night after years of outside criticism for falling short in finals, and after securing the 2022 flag with 10 players over the age of 30 - including two at 34, and with another aged 29 - emotion takes over when the past 11 seasons are put in context of the 81-point Grand Final win against the Swans.

The most extreme of those emotions comes when Joel Selwood enters conversations.

Mitch Duncan asks for a pause in an interview at the first mention of Joel. Paddy Dangerfield says he will cry if asked to go into Joel in detail. Sam De Koning just shakes his head, not wanting to place himself in that zone where tears will seemingly be guaranteed.

Even seasoned, hardened current and former administrators, Hocking and former president Colin Carter, take awkward seconds before responding when asked about Selwood.

Selwood played in a premiership in his first season, 2007. He was part of a losing Grand Final the following season, and then won the 2009 and 2011 flags. From 2012, he has been captain, and this year became the VFL/AFL’s most-capped captain in history.

But his six-time All-Australian (including three times as captain), three-time best-and-fairest and one-time Brownlow Medal runner-up status has been almost secondary to his ability to galvanise all aspects of this famous club.

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On Saturday, in one of the most beautiful moments of the 2022 AFL season, he carried Gary Ablett’s three-year-old son Levi, who has a rare degenerative illness, through the Cats’ pre-match banner. After the Grand Final win, amid the maelstrom of celebration, he chose to walk across to the devastated Swans’ camp and find Tom Harley, now Sydney CEO, the man who was his captain in the Grand Finals of 2007, 2008 and 2009. Then he made sure his great mate Sam Moorfoot got a special premiership celebration in the victory lap.

The Auskicker who got to provide Selwood with his premiership medallion in the official presentation was given in return the boots Selwood took into the game.

There is nothing self-centred about this guy. Everything is about a greater good, and Selwood doesn’t actually realise he is the reason there is a greater good.

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“Please don’t ask me to talk about Joel right now,” Duncan said. “I don’t want to cry.”

Dangerfield: “Joel is an incredible friend, mentor, captain, and right now I am not going to be able to actually articulate what he truly means. You walk 10 foot taller, and I know that is a cliche but it is genuinely true when I talk about Joel. He builds confidence in others. He is selfless beyond words, it seems it isn’t real how selfless he is, and he makes the rest of us seem so terrible because of how selfless he is, and of how thoughtful he is of others, and so much success this building has been because of him.”

Then there is Hocking, as hard a person who has ever played and administered the game. His normally steely eyes goes doe-eyed, even awkward, after being asked if this, indeed, was the last, at game No.355, of Selwood’s extraordinary career.

“Forget about the announcement piece (of retirement or going on into 2023), Joel is now a premiership captain, on top of everything else he has done,” Hocking says. “There is nothing he hasn’t done for this football club.”

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Colin Carter, president of the Cats from their previous premiership in 2011 through to their Grand final loss of 2020, has no doubt that Selwood has had more impact in the 125-year VFL/AFL life of Geelong than every other person to have walked through the club’s doors.

“Joel is obviously a very good footballer but he has the most amazing empathy and he is tuned in,” Carter said. “In the hub (on the Gold Coast in 2020), I watched him, and the amount of time he spent with the marginal guys in the team, it was genuine and real and just who he is.

“If this was his last game, and I hope it wasn’t, I think you would have to say, and there have been great players at this club and on that he is up there but not necessarily ahead of some, but in terms of an impact on the club, in terms of total impact on the club, a total package, he is No.1.

“Most of the other great footballers do their craft and they are fantastic, but he has been a great footballer and has had an unbelievable impact on this organisation. Joel personifies the values, in fact he personifies absolutely everything that you want in a football club. What a person.”

No one knows the history of the Geelong Football Club better than Carter, who has even desperately sought to have premierships won by Geelong prior to the formation of the VFL in 1897 included in overall premiership tallies.

So when he then volunteers that Selwood now needs to be recognised in a way which places him above the great Polly Farmer, we need to listen.

“Polly (Farmer) has a very special place at this club, and obviously it is hard to compare people over eras, but all the stuff off the field, and the relationships are so important, Joel has had an enormous historical impact, all positive,” Carter said.

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“All you ever want in a club is where people work together, with no divisions and fiefdoms, and Joel personifies that and all the values you could possibly want. Even without now being a premiership captain, he had achieved that.”