GEELONG had 462 possessions at Telstra Dome yesterday, the second highest since detailed statistics have been kept, and 107 more than Essendon. The Bombers did not do anything recurrently or culpably wrong, except not get their hands on the ball.
The Cats had 14 goalkickers, and four more who scored at least a behind. They won by 99 points.
These are mere statistics; they show the dimensions of Geelong's supremacy, but not its quality, exuberance or charm. The Cats are not physically intimidating as were the Brisbane Lions and West Coast in their premiership years. Nor do they depend on fanatical zeal, as did Sydney at its best.
Simply, they play fast, skilful and sublimely confident football.
Football that opponents cannot help but admire even as they are humiliated. Their intimidation is psychological, their opponents all too acutely aware that the merest slip or fumble is death; it happened repeatedly to Essendon yesterday.
Statistics do not show the way the Cats take on their opponents over and over, each backing both himself and the certainty that he will have a nearby mate to help out.
They do not show how clean was Geelong's handling, even at breakneck speed; this more than anything else denied Essendon possession. They do not show Joel Selwood's exquisitely timed interventions, a tackle here, a last-minute spoil there, that took the Bombers legs out from under them.
They do not show the energy, the vibrancy, the joy. They do not show novice ruckman Mark Blake galloping like a runaway giraffe into the forward line to kick a goal on the run, and another later, doubling his career tally (he also hit the post). They do not show how lesser light Mathew Stokes ran so hard and long that while closing for what would have been his third goal late in the last quarter, his legs cramped and his kick dribbled away.
Statistics do not show how the Cats did not concede a rushed behind; it was almost a point of pride, no matter how momentarily fierce Essendon's siege.
Nor do they show that there was not one holding-the-ball free kick. The Bombers did not have the ball often or long enough to infringe, the Cats did not keep it long enough. Either they broke tackles or whisked the ball on before one could be laid. In this, they are not unlike Brisbane at its peak.
Brownlow medallist Jimmy Bartel personified Geelong yesterday. He had 38 touches and kicked two goals. The first was the work of Tom Hawkins, who might have had a shot himself, but — catching the shape of play out of the corner of his eye — squared the ball, giving Bartel a platform for a towering mark. "He made eye contact and I thought: 'He's going to pop it up here'," Bartel said. "Luckily I had someone in front of me." Luck, of course, was the least of it.
For his second goal, the ball came to Bartel in so much space that he might have strolled to the goal square and toe-poked it through. Instead, he steadied himself on the 50-metre line and drilled it, as if kicking a pre-season super-goal. "You've got to back yourself in," he said later. "If you doubted yourself, you'd kick it out on the full."
In relating these cameos, there is an implication of arrogance. This is misleading. Nothing about Geelong's work and demeanour yesterday told of hubris, or triumphalism, or for that matter complacency.
Simply, it is a great side intent on getting better. Musing on Geelong's possessions record, coach Mark Thompson said: "We over-possessed the ball, something we can work on."
Reflecting on the first half, Bartel said: "We didn't kick the ball down the corridor, as we like to do. And we didn't kick the ball well to our key forwards — Hawkins and Mooney."
Recognising the football verity that nothing stands still, the Cats have raised standards, meantime inducting new talent seamlessly.
Neither premiership ruckmen played yesterday, but Blake and Trent West proved able replacements. West was playing his second game, Ryan Gamble his third, Harry Taylor, a likely type of half-back from Perth, his first.
Somehow, Geelong is smartening up a team that won last year's grand final by 20 goals.
No one at Geelong can say for sure where this quest for perfection originates. Asked, players and officials mutter about the faltering beginning to last season, at which point the premiership seemed more of a phantom than ever. The memory acts as a spur still.
Football manager Neil Balme was gracious when considering compliments about the way the Cats played yesterday, but cautioned: "It's only round two." So did Bartel.
At match's end, there was no euphoria among the Cats, just a round of backslaps, some consoling words for young Essendon opponents and a few Easter eggs for watching kids.
"We've still got to work on a few kinks in our game," said Bartel, with no hint of false modesty. Like the behind that would have made the margin an even century yesterday, it is a point not be lost on the rest of the competition.
