A winning milestone occasion for duo as Cats sink the Suns
THERE was already enough air taken out of this game with no crowd on hand to witness the double milestone of two Geelong greats.
But that was tempered to a degree with the prospect of the game’s latest superstar Matt Rowell getting to go up against the likes of Joel Selwood and Gary Ablett, before the Cats went on to triumph 13.11 (89) to 8.4 (52) at GMHBA Stadium on Saturday.
Rowell had been compared to the Cats skipper given the impact he‘d had on the competition in such a short time.
And Selwood made sure early that the kid knew he was around, giving him a clip over the head in the opening few seconds for which Rowell received a free-kick. The stage was set. Unfortunately the show only lasted 13 minutes. When Rowell hit the deck after a Brandan Parfitt tackle the whole football world held its breath. It was obvious his shoulder had popped out and the worst was confirmed shortly afterwards.
Geelong was already leading by three goals and the whiff of doom and gloom around the Suns was overwhelming.
But that was the outfit formally known as the Gold
Coast Suns, not the 2020 version.
With Rowell gone, it was another young gun in Ben King who took over centre stage kicking three goals in the second quarter to reduce the margin to just four points at halftime.
Then consecutive goals to Gold Coast full-forward Sam Day inside the opening five minutes of the third term had the Suns leading by eight points.
None of this was in the script for what was supposed to be a celebration of Selwood‘s 300th and Ablett’s 350th games. A brilliant endto-end passage of play which resulted in a Parfitt goal at the nine-minute mark sparked the home team.
It kicked four of the next five goals of the third quarter to turn the game on its head. Selwood was one of the best players on the ground, collecting 22 disposals.