GEELONG'S players had assembled for their first gathering on what they would later identify as the first day of season 2008. In truth, it was only a few weeks after the Cats became premiers.
In a large meeting room at club headquarters, coach Mark Thompson addressed his men and drew a line in the sand between one brilliant season and the one that faced them.
It was there that he used new language to describe his team's grandest of grand final victories achieved in September — Thompson called it a "coaching tool". From that point on, he said on that spring day that the year, the result and all the brilliance — Geelong won the AFL and VFL premierships, had players win the Brownlow Medal, the Norm Smith Medal, the Rising Star award as well as a record nine positions in the All-Australian team — would be nothing more than a handy reference point.
Tonight, the Cats begin what everyone except the Cats will call a premiership defence. They are calling it a new year.
"It's been funny though, making that commitment to not dwell on last year, we've been doing an awful amount of talking about not dwelling on last year," club vice-captain Cameron Ling said with a laugh yesterday while on his way to catch a plane to Adelaide where the grand final re-match with Port Adelaide will be held at AAMI Stadium tonight.
More than five months later, Ling has only just sent his premiership medallion and jumper to a framing shop, after finally getting the signature of Cat-turned-Saint Steven King on the guernsey. Unlike many of his teammates he didn't get his body tattooed to mark the milestone, and spent all but a few days of his annual leave surfing in Hawaii and Bali.
Ling has only watched the grand final once and his vision, he conceded this week, was blurry because it was on the Monday after he had helped lead his side to the record 119-point grand final victory.
"I think that's something that I'll sit down and relax one day, maybe at the end of my career or some stage and just have a quiet beer and watch it," Ling said.
"For now I'll just move on. I enjoyed it that much I'd like to do it again some day."
Great, so he's talking dynasties? Not quite.
"We haven't spoken about going onto win two or three or anything like that, it's been our theme right throughout that we concentrate on smaller steps along the way," Ling said.
"What's driving me now is similar to what has driven me over the past few years and that's to be the best team in the competition. I love winning, I love winning with a bunch of mates who all love winning as well, and we're keen to do that again.
"And there are a couple of blokes who didn't get to play in the premiership last year, one in particular, Matty Egan, who played such a huge part in it (before getting injured). I think as a group we'd all love it if he could be involved if we were able to do the job again. Who knows if that's this year or if it's next year or if it's a couple of years after that.
"We've said right throughout last season, over the pre-season and now coming into this season that if we concentrate on getting our things right — what we've got to do well on and off-the-field — then it should all take care of itself. That's our biggest focus."
On the eve of the new season there is a prevailing school of thought among footy observers that Geelong need only maintain the level at which it played in 2007 in order to stay on top this year.
The Cats have devoted the entire summer, however, to re-setting goals. The resolution of the discussions was that just because they had become the league's superpower side didn't mean they all had to become superstars.
"We haven't raised our expectations, our personal expectations," Ling explained.
"We don't need Jimmy Bartel to go on and win another Brownlow. We don't need Gary Ablett to dominate, we don't need Moons (Cameron Mooney) to kick five goals a game or go to any crazy level of play.
"Just because we've won a premiership now it doesn't mean that we need players to play above themselves, or dominate entire games, or kick ten goals a game or anything. It's more (about) playing the role that's expected of them from the team. If everyone does that we're sort of set."
The hard luck story of last year's grand final, young ruckman Mark Blake, is expected to make the off-season release of his erstwhile superior King fairly seamless.
Similarly, the club has confidence that a trimmer Tom Hawkins, who has ignored all his urges over summer to chow down on fast food, will step into the hole Nathan Ablett left.
"When I say we don't need any individuals to be superstars, we still need the whole group to improve," Ling said.
"Teams are going to come at us, teams are going to look at the way we play. So our focus has been on improving as a whole group as much as we possibly can."
Ryan Gamble and Trent West are the youngsters Ling picks out of the bunch as most likely to make their marks this year.
Ling earmarks a couple of others who have been on the scene for a while — Travis Varcoe, Kane Tenace, Shannon Byrnes and Andrew Mackie — as other improvers.
"And Joel Selwood will keep getting better too, which is bloody scary."
Ling's selections for the greatest threats to dethroning Geelong are not unpredictable: "I think the team we're playing Thursday night will be very, very good again. I think St Kilda has shown pre-season, and they had a terrible run with injuries last year, that if they can get a full team in they will be right up there. Hawthorn will improve dramatically again."
Fremantle, he expects, will also make the top eight. But Ling is not too keen on forecasting.
"There's definitely those expectations that we're going to have an all right season, which is fine, it's sort of a good thing," he said.
"But I'm thinking about the first quarter against Port Adelaide, and probably even breaking that down to the first 10 minutes and the first contest type thing."
So Geelong is just due for an "all right" season?
Well, then, it's official — the lid's back on.
