Geelong, September 2011
“Mate, you stand up and take us all the way.”
It was the week of the Qualifying Final, with the Hawks waiting on Friday night at the MCG.
Geelong had completely dismantled the league leading Magpies in the final round of the home and away season. Most saw it as a dead rubber, whatever the result, ladder positions wouldn’t change: Collingwood first, Geelong second.
Not Geelong. It was a clinic, and it’s not hard to see how the Cats had grown in confidence after the 96-point victory. Wise footy heads will always tell you that you can’t flirt with form.
Finals week at football clubs is a tense mix of excitement and nerves. Things can end suddenly, or the flame continues to flicker. And then you do it again next week, maybe.
It was in that environment that Geelong skipper Cameron Ling approached 23-year-old Tom Hawkins at the main training session ahead of the 2011 finals series opener.
“You be the one to lead us,” Ling told the son of Jumping Jack Hawkins.
“All these guys here, we’re right behind you.”
The transition, or handover, from the beloved Cameron Mooney to Hawkins, was no Kirribilli agreement. It happened, but it wasn’t linear. It may not have been the difference between Geelong winning or losing the premiership, but the way it was handled could have been.
The Hawkins story is well known. A big, bustling, father-son selection loaded with promise struggles to find his way early as most big, bustling key forwards carrying expectations often do.
Mooney, the ‘big hairy Cat’, who kicked 67 goals in the club’s breakthrough flag in 2007, was at the other end of his career, but desperate for one last premiership.
But crucially, not at the expense of the team. And it’s this story, one of many selfless acts that litter this season, and seasons since that make up the Geelong story.
Team first. Always.
The selection dilemma was one that was familiar to full back Matthew Scarlett.
He’d seen a similar story play out with former skipper Steven King in 2007, and now it was his close friend, Mooney, battling to hold his spot. Rugged defender Darren Milburn would eventually suffer a similar fate.
But Scarlett was almost manic in his focus.
“My message to both of them was simple: I support whatever is best for the team.”
That Cats show rolled on after the Round 8 win over the Magpies, the only hiccups being against Essendon and West Coast in Rounds 14 and 15 by a total of 12 points.
But it was the gradual emergence of Hawkins that was raising eyebrows in the Geelong coaches box. He was dominant against Brisbane in Round 17 with three goals, put three on Richmond the following week, before kicking five in the 186 point demolition of Melbourne.
“It was the stuff we had seen him do at training, but he just hadn’t been able to translate it into a game," Chris Scott said.
“It was almost like the penny dropped and he was saying, ‘Now, I know what you’re talking about.”
What had become clear at that point of the season was that James Podsiadly, himself an incredible story, from staff member and VFL player, to number one forward in the space of two seasons, had assumed the number one mantle.
That left one spot in the side going forward.
“I get back into the side against Melbourne that day, we kicked 200 odd points. I thought I’m on my way. I’m feeling good,” Mooney recently told the Herald Sun’s Sacked podcast.
“And then the next week we played Gold Coast. So, we played the two worst teams in the comp. I’ve beaten up on them and I thought I was going all right.”
The Cats would drop one more that season, a rare home loss to the Swans by 13 points, setting up a 1 vs 2 clash against the Magpies to end the home and away season.
That week, Chris Scott called Mooney into his office. Mooney said even though he was 60% fit, he thought the meeting might be good news.
“Then I saw the tears welling in his eyes,” he said, ‘I’m going to go with the young fella. I don’t know why, it’s just a gut feeling.’ I said, ‘you’re probably right.’”
Hawkins had kicked just the 18 goals up to that point of the season, but Ling, Scott, and even Mooney knew what he was capable of, and Mooney himself, perhaps, no longer was.
Ling had one last message to deliver to the emerging spearhead before he left the training track ahead of that Qualifying Final.
“Deliver us a premiership.”
Geelong would duly dispose of the old enemy Hawthorn by five goals that weekend, their seventh straight win over the Hawks since the 2009 grand final, and send West Coast back across the Nullarbor hurting to the tune of 48 points to set up a date with Collingwood in the decider.
It could only have been the Magpies.
Tomorrow: Greatness Inc. Part 5: The Geelong Way. After 12 long months, Grand Final day is here and the Magpies are waiting.
Sources: Comeback, The Fall and Rise of Geelong, James Button. Greatness Gullan, Scott, Greatness. Scarlett, Matthew, Hold the Line (My Story. Johnson, Steve (with Adam McNicol), Stevie J: The Cat with the Giant Story. Chapman, Paul (with Jon Anderson), Chappy: Believe it or Not.
