The Cats buried the Pies with four minutes of magic. Here’s how Collingwood nearly beat them anyway
With eight minutes to go on Saturday night at the MCG, Collingwood led Geelong by a solitary point.
With four minute and 40 seconds remaining, the Cats led by 17, courtesy of a withering onslaught of sustained stoppage brilliance led by the latest – but probably not the last – game-turning burst from the ageless Patrick Dangerfield.
And with two seconds left, the Magpies were left four points behind yet with the chance to claim the most unlikely of their long, long list of miraculous come-from-behind wins, with the ball – and the result – in the hands of Jack Crisp, he of an AFL record 245 consecutive games, with an Ash McGrath-style moment of milestone heroism staring him in the face.
We all know what happened next. But this is the story of more than just that final, fateful kick.
This is the story of the eight minutes that preceeded it, of two footballing heavyweights completing an epic, seesawing match with the most seismic momentum swings of all.
This is the story of the five magic moments that clinched this classic for the Cats … and the five more that, but for one errant set shot, would have pinched it for the Pies.
The tale begins on the wing, some eight minutes and 15 seconds on the clock, both match and ball in fierce dispute.
For the Cats, moment one arrives with Mark Blicavs: gathering a loose ball after Connor O’Sullivan had spoiled the Sherrin from the clutches of Brody Mihocek, the instinct of a normal man of his size at this stage of the match would be to sink the slipper into it and hurtle it towards goal as fast as possible.
But Blicavs, despite a night of ruckwork forced upon him by Rhys Stanley’s early hamstring injury, is not a normal man of his size. With unwavering concentration, he aims a delicate pass directly into the corridor, towards the clutches of Mitch Duncan – with Pies converging from everywhere, it’s disaster if the kick goes awry, or if the recalled veteran fumbles.
The wobbling kick reaches Duncan in the nick of time to avoid a spoil from the oncoming Scott Pendlebury, but not quickly enough to not be forced out of his hands; Duncan, though, with composure borne of 297 games and two premierships in this caper, regathers on hands and knees, and scoops a handpass to Max Holmes.
He does likewise to Zach Guthrie, and from a flashpoint moment of terror, the Cats are about to have the inside 50 they crave.
Moment two is now at hand: as Guthrie bangs the footy long to the hot spot, a scrambling Magpies defence put under the pump, the eye is instinctively drawn to the man you’d expect to be the Cats’ greatest threat at plucking a mark. Jeremy Cameron.
Subdued for much of the night, and never a great overhead mark anyway, the champion is nevertheless occupying Brayden Maynard’s full attention, the pair grappling for position as the footy reaches the top of its arc and comes down.
Neither man, All-Australians both, have correctly judged where the ball will land. You know who has? Ollie Dempsey. The 22-year old, 40 games into his fledgling career, fresh off a Rising Star win in a breakout 2024 and quietly having an even better 2025.
He’s competing one-on-one too. His opponent? Only Crisp himself, 245 consecutive games of iron will and rock-solid dependability, in every role from inside midfielder to rebounding defender to the one that now has him stationed on Dempsey: running wingman.
Yet it’s Dempsey who positions himself where the ball will land, as Cameron and Maynard watch it clear their heads. It’s Dempsey who, having taken several spectacular marks, including one this very evening, sitting on bloke’s heads, has the good sense this time to keep himself grounded. It’s Dempsey with the strength, somehow manufactured from his still-spindly frame, to legally shunt Crisp just far enough away so that his spoil only finds air.
It’s Dempsey who marks, 20 metres out directly in front, for the goal to give the Cats back the lead they seemed to have squandered for good a quarter earlier amid Collingwood’s gradual wresting back of control following a withering burst in the opening minutes.
It’s Dempsey who begins the even more withering burst that is to come.
As quickly as moment two has arrived than moment three takes its place: from the centre bounce, a source of Magpie strength all evening and indeed all season, through comes the speed of Holmes.
Holmes stands by himself at the ball-up: his nominal opponent, Nick Daicos, is several metres away, and the pace at which he enters the frame right as the footy reaches the two ruckmen suggests this is a set play, with the No.35’s plan to hit the pack at full speed, win the ball, and surge the Pies forward.
Instead, the opposite happens: Holmes, at the foot of the rucks, is in prime position to gather the loose ball, burst away from Jordan De Goey, and run for space.
He doesn’t run forward at first, but rather sideways, out to the vacant expanses of the wing, with both Patrick Lipinski and Jhye Clark retreating from their spots there towards the Cats’ forward 50. It means Holmes can begin to straighten up, right on the outer edge of the centre square, and by the time Scott Pendlebury arrives to force him to kick, he’s on the Cats’ side of the centre circle and can drive the ball inside 50.
But that isn’t moment three – the kick, a checkside on the right foot, is sloppy, lacks penetration, and falls about 20 metres short of where it was intended.
Moment three is Patrick Dangerfield, anticipating the drop of the ball quicker than anyone else with 35-year old eyes, accelerating to it faster than anyone else on 35-year old legs, and safely clutching the Sherrin to his 35-year old chest, with Maynard’s last-second lunge coming to naught but a brief fracas caused by the Pie dragging the Cat back onto him in the aftermath.
As was the case so often in his heyday, this final quarter has been Dangerfield’s domain: he’d finish it with 13 disposals, 10 contested possessions, five score involvements and eight ground ball gets – the latter just two fewer than the Pies’ entire team would muster for the term.
And, most crucially of all, one goal: never a particular forte, Dangerfield’s set shot from 45 metres out never looks like missing.
Most subtle of the five Cats moments, but no less important for it, comes several minutes later; the margin 11 points, the time remaining five minutes and 48 seconds.
From half-back, Darcy Moore fans a pass out to the wing, aiming at Patrick Lipinski. It’s a strong kick, but hangs in the air a fraction longer than ideal, leaving Lipinski to wait under the high ball as the Pies make position ahead of him. If he marks, though, they will be away.
But he doesn’t mark. Because Jhye Clark, among the most maligned of Cats, he in his third year after being touted as the next Joel Selwood as a draftee, he who is yet to make good on the predictions of greatness that saw him taken with a top-10 pick a junior, can execute a perfect spoil from a tricky position to execute one without giving away a free kick.
It allows Guthrie to arrive, escort the ball over the boundary line, and neutralise the Pies’ forward foray for a throw-in. It might just be Clark’s most significant act yet as an AFL footballer.
Normal service resumes for moment five, though; by which I mean, it’s time for Dangerfield to yet again wrest this match from the Magpies’ grasp.
The stage is a boundary throw-in inside the Cats’ forward 50, the clock now with less than five minutes on it. Dangerfield, bizarrely, is Geelong’s ruckman, squaring off with a powerful, in-form opponent in Darcy Cameron.
Naturally, Cameron wins the tap; but with the Cats forcing the ball into dispute with heavy pressure after he attempted to lace out Scott Pendlebury, it becomes immaterial.
It’s Shaun Mannagh at ground level who gets the most important hands to the ball, firing out a quick pass to Dangerfield; but it’s his captain who, with Magpies to all sides, stops for the briefest fraction of a second to assess his options, powers into a hole in the black and white net closing in, wrests his body free of a Crisp tackle to allow him to get hands free for a pass even as he’s being taken to ground, and perfectly find a loose Jack Bowes to snap what seems, and what will eventually prove to be, the sealing goal.
Dangerfield has done things like this so often that we sometimes forget how remarkable it is: the elite footy IQ to pick the perfect gap to run through, the strength to draw and then shrug the tackle of a feisty competitor such as Crisp, and to even nail the handball on top of all of it so Bowes doesn’t have to break stride, bend down or leap to win the ball, is what elevates the great into the pantheon of champions.
Four minutes and 40 seconds remain. The Cats lead by 17. They are, for all intents and purposes, home.
But this is a story of two parts. And it’s now time to hear what the Magpies have to say about it all.
Moment one for the Pies encapsulates all their never-say-die spirit, the zest which has stolen them victory upon victory since Craig McRae took the reins.
From half-back, after a free kick against – who else? – Dangerfield, the Pies surge into immediate attack mode. Racing down the wing with a chain of handballs, Harry Perryman dishes to Steele Sidebottom, who, with utter calm and composure, runs measuredly along the boundary line, indulges in a bounce, all the while waiting for Bailey Smith to close in on him and allow the chance at an overlap.
Eventually, he does; Sidebottom duly, at the perfect time, handballs away, freeing up Maynard to run a further 15 metres and centre inboard with a perfect pass to De Goey on the edge of 50. With the Cats’ defence scrambling, frantically shifting back towards goals, his kick catches them out – it’s not long to the hot spot, but rather wide to space 40 metres out from goal, where Lachie Schultz is free to mark.
His kick, depending on who you ask, either floats through for a goal, or was grazed by Blicavs on its way past him in the goalsquare.
A behind is called, but the Pies have signified two things: one, they have the resolve and the energy left to fight out the remaining 212 seconds of this match right to the end; and two, their skills will not let them down when it matters most.
The Cats still lead by 16, but it’s a whole lot more nervous an advantage than it was even a minute earlier.
On to moment two: a Cats hacked footy down the wing, after territory and as much as they can get, is intercepted by the strong hands of Darcy Moore.
As time ticks down, he assesses his options, finds none to his liking, and goes for broke: as long as he can muster, his kick sails to the hot spot, some 40 metres out from goal, hoping for a miracle from a Pies forward line not renowned for its contested marking.
And as if on cue, Brody Mihocek, sandwiched between two Cats, pulls one down.
How? Who knows. This is what Collingwood do, after all. And naturally, his set shot, after a nervy 2.3 for the evening to date, is straight through the middle.
Two minutes and 26 seconds remain. 10 points is the margin. And not a single soul at the MCG thinks the Magpies aren’t in this up to their eyeballs.
Moment three is not Bobby Hill mowing down Shaun Mannagh from behind with a truly spectacular chase that you could see coming for a full five seconds as he closed with the speed of a cheetah and the menace of a great white shark, because the umpire – entirely correctly – ruled he had taken the Cat down by the legs.
It’s not Jamie Elliott giving away a free kick – again correct – for holding Jack Bowes at half-forward to stop a Magpies forward foray with a minute and 20 seconds left, that by rights should be the end of their final chance.
Instead, it’s what happens at the clock ticks down below 60 seconds; first, Isaac Quaynor’s handball to a free Harry Perryman, and then his nerveless pass to a free Schultz at half-forward, in one move opening up all kinds of black and white possiblities. And then his kick to Elliott, the clutchest Magpie at all, some 40 metres out and on a testing angle.
If given more time, he might have nailed it; as it stands, he gives himself a mere five seconds before taking the kick, duly failing to make the distance. As it soars wide, that, you assume, is that.
But no! Moment four is Mihocek, again launching himself unto the breach, like Dangerfield earlier gauging the ball dropping short quicker than anyone else, and marking in the goalsquare to keep the game very much alive.
20 seconds are left. Geelong’s lead is four points. Quite literally, it all comes down to this.
Moment five is where the Cats seem to crack; everyone knows how the Magpies like to keep the ball as tight as possible to run the clock down when holding narrow leads, refusing to let the footy emerge into open space and all the while maintaining just enough momentum on it to delay a ball-up for as long as possible.
Blicavs decides what’s good for the goose is good for the gander; after successfully locking up with Cameron for one extra ball-up to shave five seconds off the clock, he tries it again, scooping the ball up from the ruck contest and quite literally latching himself to his opposite ruckman, putting on more of a tackle than Cameron was himself.
If he thinks he can get around making no attempt to dispose the ball by pretending he’s a tackler, it’s a brain fade; the umpire, after letting six more seconds of time expire, pings him.
It’s at this moment that the Cats’ defence breaks as well. Almost to a man, they begin sprinting back towards the goals, seemingly certain that the ball is about to be coming their way as long as possible.
But Sidebottom, who receives the handpass from Cameron, doesn’t have time to try for run and carry; it’s all he can do to throw the ball onto the boot and wobble it inside 50.
For the third time in the final eight minutes, a kick drops short. And like Dangerfield and Mihoceck before, it’s again marked – this time by Crisp, reading the flight of the footy a fraction of a second earlier than Guthrie, holding the ball to his chest and appearing to ping something in the process.
Was it the pain of some unknown ailment that caused him to spray the set shot wide? Was it the pressure of the moment, compounded by a milestone game and perhaps the weight of being involved so heavily in two of Geelong’s game-breaking three goals earlier in the term?
Answers for another time, debates for another day. Now is the time to appreciate the utter spectacle that was a Saturday night classic at the MCG, and a final eight minutes as engrossing, captivating and magnificent as any in recent football memory.
Geelong, and Dangerfield broke the Magpies in the first half of those eight minutes. Then they watched in horror as the greatest comeback team our game has seen dragged themselves back from oblivion, pieced themselves back together, and gave themselves the best possible chance to win the unwinnable game.
The Cats emerged as the winners. But the Magpies could scarcely be said to have lost it.
