The Cats were flag favourites in 2007 and heading into their preliminary final against Collingwood, they were expected to get the job done and book their first Grand Final appearance since 1995.
Minor premiers, the Cats had defeated North Melbourne by 106 points in the qualifying final two weeks earlier. After a week off, they went into the game as red hot favourites.
Mick Malthouse’s men on the other hand had finished in sixth position, defeated Sydney in week one and then West Coast in Perth in extra time in week two.
I, like the 98,000 other Geelong and Collingwood fans, made the trip to the MCG that Friday night, daring to dream.
With nervous excitement we took our seats down the Punt Road end, directly behind the Geelong cheersquad. Our Cats had the opportunity to write their own history, their fate was in their hands.
Shooting out of the blocks, the Cats kicked 4.4 (28) to Collingwood’s 2.5 (17) in the first quarter.
Brad Ottens played one of the games of his career, dominating the ruck and collecting 23 possessions around the ground.
Despite their best efforts to shake the Pies, the Cats couldn’t break clear of a well-drilled Collingwood side and went into both half and three quarter time clinging to five-point leads.
In the last quarter, goals from Steve Johnson and Paul Chapman had us breathing a little easier but Collingwood weren’t going down without a fight and hit back with goals from Travis Cloak and Alan Didak to bring the margin back to five-points yet again.
A piece of Gary Ablett brilliance resulted in a goal, giving us an 11-point buffer and what we thought was the sealer.
Sitting in the crowd, your heart was in your throat, there was now just 90 seconds standing between the Cats and a Grand Final.
With 1.20 left of the clock Collingwood’s Paul Medhurst converted from a free kick to bring the margin back to five with 57 seconds remaining.
It was a fierce battle for the ball in the dying seconds, a boundary thrown-in led to Alan Didak flinging the footy onto his boot to propel the ball inside the Pies’ forward 50.
As the clock continued to tick down the Cats forced a ball up. The siren sounded as the ball was thrown up. The Cats snatched victory in a classic 13.14 (92) to Collingwood’s 13.9 (87). James Kelly fist pumped the air, Brad Ottens and Corey Enright embraced, the crowd erupted, my Nan fainted.
“That is one for the ages, that’s as good a prelim as we’ve seen for a long long time,” commentator James Brayshaw said.
As we made our way out of the MCG, our fingers remained tightly crossed that we’d get our hands on the hottest tickets in town, tickets to the last Saturday in September.
The following week Geelong went on to break the club’s 44-year premiership drought with a 119-point win over Port Adelaide.
Click the video above to see Jimmy Bartel's recollections of the win over Collingwood
