CTV> Head coach Mick Malthouse and captain Nick Maxwell fronted the media on Thursday at the AFL House ahead of the NAB Cup grand final
PERHAPS club chiefs at Collingwood and Geelong could see into the future when last season they brokered a deal with the AFL to see their clubs play an Easter Thursday blockbuster in 2009.
Those in charge at the Cats and the Magpies are hoping the League gives the match the green light to become an annual event, a marquee match on the football calendar such as ANZAC Day and Easter Monday.
For there is little doubt a healthy rivalry is forming between two of the healthiest on-field clubs in the AFL.
Geelong has been a grand finalist for the past two AFL seasons and seem poised to challenge for at least another couple.
And a case could be mounted that the Magpies are treading a similar path to their NAB Cup grand final opponents as they strive to reach the competition’s highest peak: a preliminary final two years ago, the second week of the finals in 2008.
A win in tonight’s NAB Cup grand final would line-up nicely with Geelong’s form of recent years, which reads – 2004: preliminary final, 2005: first-semi final, 2006: NAB Cup premier.
There are some striking similarities between the Cats and the young Pies.
Collingwood boasts a young, even list that is short on superstars but desperately needs some of its A-Graders to go to the next level for the club to take the next step.
That sounds awfully akin to a club from Sleepy Hollow way a couple of seasons ago.
It wasn’t so long back that Jimmy Bartel, Steve Johnson and, yes, even Gary Ablett, were just really good players – not the footballing geniuses the world knows them as today.
Collingwood skipper Nick Maxwell is one who can see the parallels between his team and the Cats of not so long ago.
“I think that we’ve got probably a similar-aged list,” Maxwell said.
“They’ve got a lot of guys who are probably, in average age, two years older than us at a guess. Through the 24- to 26-[year bracket] I think they’ve probably got a lot more players than we have and they all came through together.
“So we’ve got a lot of younger guys who have got a lot of games into them, probably 1500 games, and we’re sort of expecting them to really step up over the next year and be an integral part of the team.”
Maxwell is counting on the likes of Didak, Thomas, Cloke and Pendlebury to take that next step – from really good to super good.
He knows if that happens, his president’s stated aim of winning the 2009 flag is within the realms of possibility.
And should it be the Cats who stand in their way in September – and not in a NAB Cup decider – the Magpies may have little trepidation.
In 2006 they beat the Cats by more than 100 points, and a year later, when the Cats were tearing up the competition, Mark Thompson’s men needed all day to shrug off the Magpies at a packed MCG.
Later that year, in a match many Collingwood fans are still ruing, Geelong scraped home by less than a kick in the preliminary final. And everyone knows what the Cats did to Port Adelaide a week later.
Last season’s 86-point annihilation of Geelong – the Cats’ only home-and-away loss of the season – only instilled further self-belief among the black-and-white army.
Magpies midfielder Dane Swan might only have been speaking to a bunch of school kids at a community camp at Rosebud last month, but his confidence was refreshingly honest.
Geelong was one of those sides, he said, that his team always felt they were a pretty good chance to roll.
You can bet the Pies will feel that way again tonight.
