by Darren Spence

Well I didn’t write a report for the last game of the regular season as I didn’t watch it. Yes I know…my first game I have missed watching live since well…. since last decade. I had to work in the Solomon Islands and it was 30 hours door to door. Jakarta, Singapore, PNG and then Honiara. I thought I had it all planned. AFL Live subscription up to date. Check. Make sure my flight arrives in time. Check.

Everything was running smoothly. I checked into the hotel with 1 hour before the start and this is when things started going downhill and downhill quickly. It became apparent that wifi in the country is well let’s just say the whole main island has 10…yes 10 wifi hot spots and they work as consistently as a Metro rail train timetable.

The hotel I was staying in thankfully had one. Starting to feel a little nervous my next hope was that it would be shown on TV in the hotel room. I searched the channels…No luck. I then had to rely on the wifi gods being good to me and ran the wifi gauntlet in one of the many bars they had. It was unwatchable. After 15 minutes of buffering and reloading I resigned my fate to checking the scores as the game progressed.

We won!!..I read we played well…One day I will get around to watching the replay. The end of this story?….The next day I was speaking to some hotel guests and they told me that the game was shown LIVE on TV in a bar just 50m away from where I was screaming at my laptop trying to watch it!…So much for my forward planning!

I was not going to make the same mistake again. So another 30 hours of travelling saw me perched in my favourite bar in Jakarta with a good 2 hours before the start of play in the first final the Dees have been in for 12 years. It was so worth it.

From the start of the game the boys were switched on. It was always going to be critical. With our lack of finals experience, a fast start by the Cats could have seen the game over before we even got started. A 5 goal to nil quarter time score is everything this sleep deprived Dees fanatic as well as all Dees fans could have dreamed for. (Speaking of dreaming…..at one stage I thought I was….by this stage it was approaching 2 days since I had anything like resembling sleep!).

The second quarter had me worried. 17 inside 50s for the quarter should have seen the game well and truly over but as has happened all year our lack of conversion came back to haunt us. 6 behinds and 4 no scores was a poor return and it kept Geelong in the game. The third and forth quarters were pretty much even and in the end it was our efforts in the first quarter that ensured our long awaited first finals appearance was a joyous one and absolutely erased any pain from our 2 losses against the Cats in the regular season.

Our pressure, both direct and referred, has been one of strong points this year and we took it up a notch on Friday night. Viney 11, Harmes 10, ANB 9 and Vanders 7 all led the way in the tackling department and it definitely set the tone for the night.

What about Weideman!?…..Far and away his best game for the red and the blue and 3 goals from 24 disposals and some towering contested marks saw him take BOG honours. Some of the media this week are even claiming that we should now entertain the thought of trading Hogan now we have Weideman and TMac up front!!!…A little premature I do think!

Harmes is now officially our most improved player this year. He towelled up Selwood and picked up 26 touches. Oliver led all comers with 30 disposals, Jetta was the boss down back, Brayshaw was fantastic as were TMac, Viney, Gawn and Vanders. In fact all the boys should be proud of their efforts as 91,000 screaming Dees fans cheered them off the ground in our most famous and important win in a very very long time.

But our most important game now becomes this week! The Hawks. They certainly have had the wood on us of late and smashed us after half time earlier in the year. But this is now our year. The Mighty Dees are on a roll and it will continue on Friday night with another monumental win!!!

Go Dees