GMHBA Stadium has not been a happy hunting ground for Port Adelaide teams over the years.
In fact, it’s almost 16 years to the day since the Power left Geelong with premiership points in their cabin baggage and it’s a game that most Cats fans, and in particular former skipper Cameron Ling, remember well.
But first, a scene setter.
2007 was promising to be the year. Bomber Thompson’s young, talented, but prior to that season, inconsistent, team, was finally beginning to evolve into the dynastic, dominant side they were soon to become.
It was late August and the Cats were hunting their 16th straight win when Mark Williams’ Power came to town.
Cameron Ling picks up the story from there.
“I was sitting in the stands, the old Ross-Drew stand down here, myself, Joel (Selwood) and I think Jimmy (Bartel) were rested on the eve of the finals,” Ling recalled on the To the Final Bell podcast this week.
“I remember cracking it so bad at Bomber when he said, ‘I'm just going to freshen you up, it's all good.’
“It wasn't about banking the win, it was we couldn't change our position.
“I was so angry at him', he laughed. 'I was fuming and he said, 'just settle down, you'll be right, you've got bigger fish to fry in the next month or so.'”
With the Cats down by 5 in the latter stages of the game, the trio of rested Cats would have been on the edge of their seats alongside the other 24,331 fans crammed into the ground that day, when Gary Ablett Jr produced the kind of magical goal that was fast becoming a trademark.
It put the Cats up by a point in the dying stages of what was turning out to be one of the games of the year.
If you need a refresher, look it up on YouTube. It's remarkable.
Ablett, taking a handball off Brad Ottens fakes right, and two Port players collapse in unison like a pair of those myotonic goats who faint when startled, as the goals open up and the terraces erupt with a mix of relief and euphoria.
As Tim Watson said on the day from the commentary box, it was an extraordinary bit of play. But the rest, as they say, is history, and Dom Cassisi would put the Power ahead with mere seconds to play not long after, inflicting a loss on the Cats at home for the last time in a long time.
The Cats, of course, would get their own back four weeks later when they would steamroll the Power by a record 119 points, the biggest win in AFL/VFL Grand Final history.
