Pies pack massive late punch but Giants stand tall

Jeremy Finlayson is jubilant after kicking a goal for the Giants from a ruck contest in the third quarter. Photo: GETTY IMAGES

There haven’t been many bigger finals boilovers, certainly in the modern history of the AFL. And there haven’t been many more dramatic finishes.

But the upshot is that Greater Western Sydney will next Saturday contest its first grand final after upsetting Collingwood by four points, surviving an amazing late Magpie comeback after the game had looked shot to pieces, the Giants leading by 32 points nearly eight minutes into the final term.

It was then that a goal to Collingwood’s Jaidyn Stephenson kick-started a revival that brought the Pies to within a goal with seven minutes still left to play.

The ball spent that final seven minutes parked almost exclusive in Collingwood’s forward 50 as the Pies desperately tried to find a winner.

Had they done so, we would also have had one of the great finals controversies on our hands, Magpie Josh Thomas’s goal nine minutes into the last quarter having clearly deflected off Giants’ defenders’ fingers on the way through, but the AFL’s much-vaunted new ARC somehow failing to pick it up.

Had Collingwood got up, it would have been officially the biggest comeback from a final-term deficit in preliminary final history, all the more remarkable because the Pies to that point had kicked just three goals for the entire game.

But as game an effort as it was, the Giants really did deserve the win. It was they who made most of the running and battle for territory in difficult conditions which this game dissolved into. And at the end, hanging on grimly, it was they who showed enormous resolve, what in recent weeks has become a bit of a trademark.

And the conditions which prevailed made that a very welcome quality indeed. The persistent light rain which fell from the very start of this game made what was already likely to be a tight scrap even tighter and scrappier still.

It still didn’t stop Collingwood hitting the scoreboard first in under three-and-a-half minutes, Jamie Elliott coolly slotting a chance after marking in plenty of space in a forward-pocket, picked out superbly by Magpie defender Jack Crisp, a big presence early with 10 first-term touches.

The pre-game speculation had GWS tagger Matt de Boer going with Scott Pendlebury. That match-up proved to be the case and De Boer, as has become his wont, had great impact early in reducing the Magpie skipper’s influence, Pendlebury with only three first-term disposals.

Soon enough, the Giants were able to get their offensive game going, too. Coleman medallist Jeremy Cameron, working up the ground, speared a lovely kick to his key forward cohort Jeremy Finlayson, who made no mistake from just inside the 50.

GWS began to dominate the forward entries, Collingwood hanging on grimly. But in what has become a recurring theme, fate, or once again injury, struck, skipper Phil Davis limping off the a calf injury.

Around the same time, Jaidyn Stephenson applied some serious heat on the Giants’ Sam Reid, and in the greasy conditions, that was enough to force a spill, which the smart Magpie forward took advantage of and slotted.

The Giants missed some gettable chances, also, Ian Hill putting a lovely pass from Harry Himmelberg out on-the-full, Daniel Lloyd missing another half-chance. And so GWS went to the first break having doubled the Pies for inside 50s, 16-8, but trailing by three points.

That would become a nine-point deficit in under two minutes of the restart. A hobbled Davis had returned to the field for the Giants, but as a forward. Sure enough, Elliott pumped a long ball into the teeth of goal, and Ben Reid, in his 150th game and first since round 15, pushed off Aidan Corr to mark and goal, in about exactly the same spot Davis would normally reside.

Davis would in fact come off a second time through injury, anyway, this time a shoulder. But the Giants resisted the temptation to consider this another of “those days”, and soon enough they were within four points again after a lovely pass from Harry Perryman found Cameron, his beautiful kick from 48 metres never looking like missing.

And just on seven minutes into the quarter, that would be the final goal of the half. Not that there was a paucity of thrills.

Cameron and his opponent Darcy Moore staged their own 70-metre sprint for a loose ball headed goalward, a rushed point the result. Giants defender Nick Haynes somehow made it in time to spoil Callum Brown from taking what looked a certain mark. Then Brown had a “fresh-air shot” when clean connection would have ensured a Collingwood goal.

And most dramatically, into time-on, Pendlebury appeared to give the Pies breathing space again with a nice snap from a stoppage, only for a goal review to overturn the all clear nearly a minute after the black-and-white army had exploded in a throaty roar.

That was about the last time Collingwood fans had the chance for some time.

Given its territorial advantage to half-time, the fact GWS finally made its weight of chances count shouldn’t really have been that much of a surprise. But it was. And with each of the five third quarter goals to the Giants, the shock seemed to register a little more profoundly.

First Brent Daniels reprised his match-winner of last week with a snap after a series of handballs from the Giants extracted the ball from the confines of the boundary line.

Just two minutes later, Zac Williams, superb off half-back, pounced on a loose ball created purely out of the Giants’ superb pressure, picked up cleanly and snapped another. Finlayson belted the ball forward for Taranto to dribble through the next.

And Finlayson himself had the next, getting away with a pretty blatant push in the back to Brodie Grundy in a ruck duel, grabbing and checkside snapping his second goal. When Cameron kicked his second with only a couple of minutes left in the term, the gap was 27 points and the crowd in stunned silence.

A few even started filing out of the aisles once he’d made it 32 points with the first goal of the final term. But, though it didn’t seem apparent at the time, that would be almost the last shot the Giants had left in them.

Stephenson started the Collingwood run. Thomas’s controversial goal made it 19 points the different with plenty of time left. Chris Mayne squeezed another through four minutes later, and Thomas’s second of the term, a lovely bit of front and centre crumbing, made it only a kick with more than seven minutes left on the clock.

The one-percenters, dives, smothers, taps, knock-ons from both teams which filled those last thrilling minutes could fill an entire match report on their own.

They included another shot from Mayne just touched on the line, this time the review system actually working. There was another flying snap from Taylor Adams which smashed into the goalpost, reducing the gap to four points with a tick over four minutes left.

The final minute saw ball-up after ball-up just 20-30 metres from Collingwood’s goal. Four in a row saw the ball hardly move anywhere before Shame Mumford, of all people, executed a neat balk and banged it clear, only for the Pies’ Brayden Maynard to rebound it straight back in.

The final act, appropriately was a smother, the ball ricocheting out of bounds as the siren rang and the tiny but enthusiastic posse of Giants supporters screamed their lungs out, this memorable preliminary final a case of third time lucky.

Of course it’s torpedoed the Richmond-Collingwood grand final everyone was talking about. But if the Giants bring this sort of determination, not to mention skill, to next week’s premiership play-off, not only will the Tigers have plenty to think about, we could also end up with a pretty damn good game.

COLLINGWOOD 2.0 3.2 3.5 7.10 (52)
GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY 1.3 2.5 7.7 8.8 (56)

CROWD: 77,828 at the MCG