AFL / John Harms / 24 April 2010 / Leave a comment Bet Now

John Harms waxes lyrical about his beloved Cats, and rightly so.

I didn't think I'd see it in my lifetime.

And yet now, I've seen it twice.

On an autumn afternoon that was more Kirra Beach weather than Kardinia Park, the community that is the Geelong Football Club raised its premiership flag.

I wasn't there.

I was going to be there for the unfurling and the match against Port Adelaide, but Theo (aged two and a half) was a late scratching and we settled for the afternoon's (delayed) telecast on Channel 7.

We hardly moved from the spot.

Tommy Harley was given a send-off on a kitchen chair in the back of a ute, and then no amount of talking him up by his commentary colleagues would budge him from his (rightly-held) view that he did it pretty tough as a footballer. In his way, Tom Harley was open and honest: he thought he hadn't been blessed with the greatest football talent and that he struggled at times.

How refreshing to hear a bloke not taking a Wallace-at-interview approach to footy, and to life.

But a bit hard on himself, I would have thought.

Although he was no Ken Hinkley (who was so very, very gifted) on the footy field, Tom Harley could read the footy in the air like the No. 29, and knew when to spoil, and when to fly for the mark.

He had terrific hands and a good sense of the position of the game.

He could direct traffic.

He could encourage.

And he will be revered at Geelong forever.

What he gave the club was leadership and character, on and off the field. I remember the Round 3 clash against Carlton in about 2004, before Tom was made captain. The Cats had been dismal. Tom spoke to ABC radio, broken, but determined to re-build.

His influence remains through some of the youngsters he nurtured. What he gave the club was a premiership, and then another one, and a Grand Final, which was lost while the 'tweety-birds' circled his bashed head on the bench. What he gave the club was a new belief, a new sense that we had every right to believe, and yet a sense of perspective.

Conditions were made for footy and the Cats didn't let their fans down. They played fast, open, attacking footy on the perfect green sward. It was colour and movement as Johnno stepped on to the stage. Like the comedian whose opening gag gets a big laugh, Johnno was loving it and ready to deliver.

The ball came in quickly from the dominant mid-field and Podsiadly (a revelation), Hawkins and Mooney had the space to move. With Johnno as the fourth forward (fifth if you count Ottens), the Cats were potent.

They looked like they could explode at any minute.

But in lackadaisical Cats fashion, and because Port started to move the ball neatly across the big Geelong ground, the scoreboard tightened in the minutes before half-time.

It had been a dominant opening half, but the Cats led by just 10 points.

Harry Taylor was having a blinder. A mature recruit from East Freo and Geraldton, Harry is a seriously good footballer and a seriously interesting bloke. He is a key position backman who can take a grab. He's a terrific defender who has plenty of Tom Harley in him, and a hint of Ken Hinkley (particularly when he takes off on those dashing runs).

He is also his own man, in the way Tommy Harley was; blokes who are not dictated to by the norms of the footy herd, but by something loftier.

In AFL footy this makes you eccentric.

And so the Cats came back on in the half-shade of the afternoon. They warmed up, drifted off to their positions, and turned on one of the great quarters of footy in the history of the game. The opening 10 minutes of the second quarter of the 2007 Grand Final was footy as it was meant to be played. This half hour, although the context was different, was its equal. The Cats kicked 11.7. Podsiadly looked like he could really play, and that he will be a lot more sevicable than Gavin Exell was to the `89 side. Johnno kept cracking gags. Harry Taylor looked like he was enjoying himself. As well as ability, there was fun in his football.

This was a truly memorable afternoon.

Apart from the unfurling of the flag and the beautiful footy played (the main memories), we might remember this as the afternoon Harry Taylor made another announcement about being a future Geelong captain. He has made quite a few of these announcements: playing solid games that ended with telling marks. Early in his career at Subiaco in a thriller against Freo. And of course in last year's Grand Final.

This is a footy team to be enjoyed, built on solid foundations, not the least of which has been the on-field leadership.

I love `em.