PLUS: GREATS PAY TRIBUTE TO GAZ
Perfect send-off beckons as former Cats champs pay tribute to the Little Master
THE second coming happened at Easter.
The year was 2002.
Less than six years after one Gary Ablett walked off the MCG, a new one walked into the football spotlight.
He was 17, but looked younger, cherubic.
There was a spring in his step that made his blond hair bounce and the crowd draw breath.
Geelong fans had done the same whenever his old man went near the ball.
Gary Sr had the perfect build for football: strong, powerful, dangerous.
His son was shorter and yet to hit the gym, but he was dynamic.
Junior moved like an Ablett, and thought like one.
Recruiters use phrases like “footy IQ” to describe what he had. To others, it looked like he could whisper to the Sherrin and tell it what to do.
He spent the bulk of that debut game against Essendon on the bench, and his numbers were modest.
But he showed glimpses of promise.
A good number of his teammates and opponents had played with and against his dad, but he did not look intimidated.
He came hard at the ball, tackled and harassed with energy and enthusiasm, and always took the hit needed to release teammates in better position.
Geelong fans had an automatic favourite.
They revered his father, but adored Gary Jr.
Behind the scenes the Cats hierarchy was doing its best to shield him from the attention, adulation and scrutiny his father had despised.
The supporters felt equally protective of the lad.
He preferred to handball early on, but used his right foot to send the masses delirious in his third game.
On the run against North Melbourne, he tucked the ball under his arm, crossed 50m, hunched his shoulders and lent forward.
He held the ball a little more vertical than most, lowering it gently to his boot. From a tight angle it sailed through for his first goal.
That distinctive kicking style became a trademark. It produced many more goals in the following seasons as the mop-haired youngster established himself as a dangerous small forward in an emerging Cats team.
His ability to bring teammates into the game was obvious from the start, but never more so than when younger brother Nathan joined the team from late 2005.
Nathan was a reluctant recruit, but Gary Jr shepherded him into the big league, feeding him the ball at every opportunity and celebrating his achievements with gusto.
By the end of 2006 Nathan was finding his way, and Gary Jr had played exactly 100 games for 135 goals.
But the team’s development had stalled.
The coach survived a searing review, leadership experts were consulted and home truths told.
Famously, some of the toughest love was sent
Gary Jr’s way.
His teammates urged him to work harder, to get out of his comfort zone and test the limits of his potential. They challenged the boy to be their main man.
They had more belief in his ability than he did.
They told him he could be the best player in the AFL.
They must have been convincing, because that is what he turned himself into.
Gary Jr made his own name in the game in 2007.
He became a prolific, dynamic goalkicking midfielder, a ferocious tackler who could extract the ball from the tightest packs and dish it out to
teammates in space or burst from the scene with electrifying speed and deliver it down the ground with precision.
By season’s end, he and Nathan had achieved something their father could not — they were Geelong premiership players.
But for all the wins, awards, records and accolades he collected that dominant season, the passage of play that summed Gary up best came in the closing moment of a rare Geelong loss at Kardinia Park.
The Cats had trailed all day, but were down by only five points in the dying minutes against Port Adelaide when Brad Ottens, on his knees, handballed to Ablett at the Barwon River end.
Football was all about contesting and congesting at the time, and Port’s troops had all exits blocked.
Or so it seemed.
Two would-be tacklers converged from the left, one from the front and one from behind. Ablett went right. He feigned to kick.
The defenders pounced. In the blink of an eye all three were face-first on the turf — including Shaun Burgoyne, one of footy’s great smoothmovers.
Ablett had corrected his careful ball drop and was speeding towards goal.
Tom Logan, pursuing from behind, leapfrogged his prostrate teammates as the Sherrin obeyed its command and sailed through the big sticks. It was instinctive, brilliant. But it was overshadowed by what happened next.
In the immediate minutes Port replied and won the game, and in the following weeks Ablett became a Geelong immortal.
The premiership was enough for Nathan. He drifted into retirement, away from the attention.
But Gary was only getting started.
When he returned for season 2008 his boyish, surfie look had gone. He was baldheaded and hungry for more.
He dominated the league that year, and was Geelong’s shining light on a disappointing grand final day, before scoring sweet redemption — and his first Brownlow Medal — in 2009.
The stats said he was even better in 2010.
While conjecture swirled about his future in Geelong, he put together a formidable season, averaging 31.5 disposals and two goals per game.
Collingwood overpowered Geelong in the preliminary final that year, but could not stop Ablett. He had 40 valiant touches as the Cats’ missed the decider for the first time in four years.
Within days he was fronting a press conference in a garish red polo shirt; the pin-up boy of the AFL expansion into trendy northern markets.
It was an upsetting sight for Cats fans, but few begrudged his decision.
He had served the club for nine years, four of them as the game’s best player, if not by pay packet then certainly by performance.
The hefty Gold Coast contract offered comfort off the field and discomfort on it.
But he led a bunch of kids from the front, growing as a leader and professional, adapting his game to new demands.
His Brownlow Medal in a weak team in 2013 was reward for continued excellence, and the Suns were rising in early 2014 before Ablett’s shoulder injury eclipsed their aspirations.
At the end of 2017 he returned home to once again carry Geelong’s hoops and hopes.
It was the second second coming of Gary Ablett.
He was older, wiser, calmer, more confident in himself.
He wore a different number, but kicked with the precise ball drop, and had the same ability to wow the Cats’ faithful.
After moving back to where it all started, he completed the circle of his football life by returning to the role of crafty small forward, and that’s where it will end on Saturday.