Watched the replay last night too. We were on toast in the 2nd. Just couldn't get anything working, the switch seemed to be flicked late in the 2nd when Balta was moved up the ground.
Still watching back, there were 3 key moments for the Cats (1 was a bit of ours) that impacted hugely. Miers playing on in the 2nd when marking 25-30 out on a slight angle and missing, Hawkins miss early in the 3rd when he played on, and Stanley just after the Miers goal was at the top of the square kicking for goal, canj't remember who put the pressure on from us, but it was massive as he sliced it through for a behind. Those 3 chances kept their scoring in check.
I know I mentioned it last night, but Nank was massive especially in our D50 stoppages. Clearly the plan was to get in front of Hawkins and nullify his impact, and he did that incredibly well, it was massive as Hawkins had been damaging in that area in their 3 finals before the GF and we completely took that forward stoppage game away from them. They don't play for hit outs at those stoppages, they play for Hawkins to take it out of the ruck and either handball forward over the contest, kick forward over the contest or kick for goal. By taking front position there plan around that was destroyed. I'd love to see stats on clearances won in our D50. That was a massive win IMO for us.
There was one thing I really took from Chris Scotts presser and it was around how Geelong took the fight upto us, he said something along the lines of, and I'm sure that makes this win sweeter for them beating us in a contest and not over running us. I think he's spot on. The 3 GF's have been so different in terms of feeling, but this one feels the best, we were challenged bloody hard especially in the 1st half, and we prevailed. I think they said we were the 1st team in 100 years to come back from\ that deficit at half time (at the time I said to my daughter, records are there to be broken).
Geelong made this a cracking game, and Selwood (bar rubbing his hand into Bakes face) was magnanimous, Ablett was very brave and tough to keep playing as was clearly in massive discomfort (much like Houli) and Scott was very gracious in defeat and you could see what this means to him. I'm not commenting on that pretender Dangerfield, he doesn't deserve any airtime.