Ling still hasn’t watched replay of 2008 disaster
IF the 2007 grand final was easily the happiest day for Geelong players at that point of their careers, then 2008 was clearly the darkest.
The Cats had won 21 homeand-away matches, finished on top of the ladder with a percentage of 161.8 and were clear favourites to go back-to-back against Hawthorn.
What happened next is something Cameron Ling — like many of his teammates that day — has never brought himself to watch, and something he says he never will.
“Everyone says the St Kilda and Geelong game from Round 14, 2009, is the greatest home-and-away game going around, but I didn’t want to watch it because we lost,” Ling said. “I had to be talked into watching it and it is a scintillating game, but I got really angry in the last couple of minutes — and that is a homeand-away game.
“So I just know that there is no point me watching the 2008 grand final because it is just going to make me grumpy about things I could have done better and things we could have been prepared for.
“But the fact is we can’t change it, so I might as well not get upset. It took a lot of really strong personalities and super competitive people to, over time, bring it together to help us understand we are a really good team and that we put
ourselves in that position because we do certain things really well.
“But, ultimately, if we don’t come together and play as a united team on the most important day, then it is kind of all for nothing.
“That happened gradually over time, and we just went back to work with a determination to be better again.
“(Season) 2009 was not an enjoyable year except for the last day, because with our wins they weren’t enjoyable because we knew none of it felt like it mattered until we had given ourselves a chance to make up for what we had done.
“That loss might have made us better, it might have hardened our edge, but I wish we didn’t have to go through it to find that out.”
Redemption would come, but the loss to the Hawks won’t ever be forgotten.