LAST weekend, Geelong was dazzling. This week, its match against unbeaten West Coast at Kardinia Park was sold out by Wednesday. At midday yesterday, traffic on the Geelong Road was bumper-to-bumper. The day was still, dry and sunny, made-to-order for football, and arriving fans fairly skipped across the netball courts.

Geelong is one of the few remaining clubs that belongs to an identifiable place and tradition. The city's adrenaline ebbs and rushes with the club's. You would swear the architrave on the Bob Davis Gate had been given a fresh lick of paint for the occasion.

Perhaps because of their isolation, the Cats are also the most fatalistic club. In the early part of yesterday's match, while the sorting out was in progress, the crowd was so quiet that the players' voices could be heard.

It was the quiet of suspense, but also of apprehension. This was a big date for the Cats, but was it too big? Half a dozen times, the Eagles had picked off Cats' handpasses, twice leading to goals. Another time, Andrew Mackie's attempted short pass hit Eagle Adam Hunter squarely in the back. But the lesson within the lesson was that the Cats had had the ball first; they were making the play.

At half-time, Geelong's lead was narrow, but worthy. At first, there was a hush: nine points seemed scarcely enough. Then there was outpouring: this was a lead over the Eagles, after all.

Geelong's forward line for the start of the second half consisted of the Ablett brothers, Tom Hawkins, Cam Mooney, Steve Johnson and Travis Varcoe. It typified the club: brilliant, mercurial, maverick, familial, but not regular. Never regular.

This sextet was not by itself why the Cats won yesterday, but it promised many wins in the near future. If they do go places, it will be in style.

Big-match pressure told in many ways, galvanising some, causing others to fray. When Hawkins, the teenage goliath, began to vent his spleen at an umpire for paying a free kick against him, he was urged to settle by, of all people, the once explosive Mooney. Later, Mooney flattened Adam Selwood — then picked him up and shook his hand.

The stadium held its breath as ruckman Mark Blake kicked from 30 metres for what would have been his first goal for the club. It would have brought down the Cats' ramshackle house. But he hit the post. No one saw it as an omen: no one had expected him to kick it anyway.

All the while, the Cats were industriously gaining the ascendancy. West Coast played as if suffocated by the ground. Steven Armstrong marked 20 metres out and tried foolishly to handpass to Hunter on the goal line. Mooney, who by now was as his hair once was — everywhere — scrambled back to intercept, and the Eagles did not even score.

Geelong held West Coast goalless for two quarters, meanwhile kicking eight of its own to lead by 45 points. Brad Ottens backed into a pack to take a mark, not his forte, but this was a team inspired. Joel Corey and Cameron Ling kept Chris Judd and Daniel Kerr on a short leash.

Then the Eagles kicked three in a row, and the tension rose. No one needed to be reminded of last year, when they came from 54 points behind to win here. John Harms wrote of how Geelong fans, their team still six goals to the good at three-quarter-time, rolled their eyes pre-emptively at the result they knew was to come.

But lightning would not strike twice. Kerr had been irresistible then; yesterday, he did not have a possession after half-time. Judd had plenty, but Judd always will. Nathan Ablett and Mooney finished the match with a flourish that was almost cocky. The Geelong fans could cheer without fear now.

In the rooms, an official said: "One week at a time." He smiled broadly, knowing how improbable that was at Geelong.

Billy Brownless dropped in, chewing his nails, a club great, but also a fan. The Ablett brothers warmed down together, of course, their legs a precious tangle.

Not one player removed his guernsey. It might have meant nothing, but it smacked of a team that felt it was on a good thing.

Coach Mark Thompson said this had been a timely week to play West Coast, the one team the Cats would never take lightly, no matter how high their own stocks. "The key for us is to go back, re-start and play that sort of footy next week, which has been something of a problem here," he said.

Thompson had been as tightly wound as any fan during the match, knowing too well the club's history of squandering the big moments.

Last night, he was going home to watch the match again at his leisure, and said he expected to enjoy it thoroughly.

Last week, the Cats won by a vast margin. Yesterday, they won big.