Cats Thrash the Dons

Inky and I stayed up late last night to watch some Sunday Afternoon Footy, live from Telstra Dome in Melbourne. It's getting harder and harder to sound honest when I say we chose the Geelong Cats as the team we would follow back in '05 after passing through on a trip down the Great Ocean Road. It just seems like band wagon jumping since the Cats blazed their way to a title last year, and have started this season looking like perfection it self.

Last night Geelong took on a team in Essendon that many consider a serious contender for the Cat's crown, and turned them away like a second rate VFL side. Geelong was amazing in a 22.18 (150) to 6.15 (51) trashing of Essendon, and everyone got in on the action. Geelong had 14 (out of 22) players kick a goal, and no one had more than three. Last year's Brownlow Meddal winner (read: MVP) Jimmy Bartel was amazing with nearly 40 possessions, two goals and the amazing flying mark you see pictured above. Gary Ablett had another amazing game, as did so many others, but the hallmark of this Geelong side is that they all elevate together and make one another better.

Despite the fact that the final score showed a 99 point drubbing, it was still a very exciting game to watch. The type of game that The Age points out that the team getting whipped can enjoy the brilliance of saying this was the kind of "Football that opponents cannot help but admire even as they are humiliated." Channel 7 Commentators Bruce McAvaney and Dennis Cometti put it right when they said that unlike most blow outs, watching the Cats dominate is exhilarating and impossible to turn away from.

Those same two men add to the enjoyment, by the way, keeping you locked into the action with their enthusiasm for the game. Weather it's Cometti's self admitted man crush on Bartel, McAvaney's liberal use of the word "clever" or the strange pop culture references they make, they keep you engaged in the game. During the third quarter, with the Cats up 83-25, backup ruckman Trent West was guilty of a trip when he spread his legs a bit wider than normal causing a Bombers player to tumble. Cometti said that it was obviously a trip, unless West was "like the congressman from Minnesota, and has a wide stance."

Footy is all around fun to watch, but with a team like the Cats and announcers like Bruce and Dennis it's a party all the way to 2 AM.