HE WAS not the forward everyone was watching, but as he floated above two Hawthorn opponents and plucked the Sherrin out of the air, Aaron Edwards ensured this final would not be all about Buddy.

The ensuing kick for goal didn't make the distance, but that didn't matter much to the unlikely hero of the Kangaroos' 33-point victory over Hawthorn last night, which secured for the Shinboners an equally unlikely preliminary final against Port Adelaide this week.

Four other kicks were true enough to make Edwards the dominant forward on the MCG, and that is no easy task when Lance Franklin is up the other end.

There were, after all, two burning questions the Kangaroos needed to answer to progress to the second-last Saturday in September.

First, how would they respond to the home truths delivered by an irate Dean Laidley following the 106-point thumping by Geelong the previous Sunday? And secondly, how would they stop Franklin?

Even before the sky-scraping mark, Edwards provided a couple of convincing early answers to the first question while Franklin was struggling and giving away free kicks.

He calmly slotted the first goal of the game after a neat pass from Shannon Grant landed on his chest. When he led hard to grab Jesse Smith's kick in his outstretched hands a few minutes later, and goaled again, Alastair Clarkson was forced to switch Campbell Brown onto him, and the uncompromising Hawk stayed with him.

This from the former West Coast rookie who was discarded at the end of 2005, went back to his Mornington Peninsula roots and found his way onto the Kangaroos list by kicking 100 goals for Frankston to win the Liston Medal in the VFL last year, and who has found his niche in the absence of Nathan Thompson.

Having given the Kangaroos the early momentum, and with Glenn Archer and Brent Harvey helped to shake off any lingering doubts from last weekend's massacre, Edwards started the second quarter in similar fashion when he was set upon by Hawks in the goal square and poked the ball through.

In the meantime, Franklin was getting into the game as only Franklin can, with a long goal dobbed the boundary line. Still, Josh Gibson — who earned the match-up ahead of Shannon Watt and Michael Firrito — was doing an admirable job in containment. Gibson was last seen reaching into the stratosphere in a valiant but hopeless attempt to spoil Cam Mooney at a desperate moment of the Geelong game, but last night he was on Franklin's hammer. He flung himself sideways to make a brilliant spoil in the third quarter, and restricted him to 3.3.

Edwards' fourth straight goal came at a crucial stage of the third quarter after the hard-running Hawks came within a goal and threatened to close the gap. It also came from one of the softest free kicks on record, but no matter the 23-year-old coolly converted from 40 metres out.

He gathered 23 touches and hauled in eight marks, none more spectacular than his third-quarter hanger. It can't be considered for mark of the year, for that is selected from the regular season and is announced during grand final week. And the Kangaroos, the surprise packet of the season, could yet be around to experience it.