05/07/2009 10:43 PM
Even triumphant St Kilda coach Ross Lyon admitted there were no losers after Sunday's heavyweight battle against Geelong and he was right.
For once a big game - arguably the biggest in home and away history considering it was the latest two unbeaten teams had ever met in an AFL season - lived up to expectations and those lucky enough to be among the record 54,444 crowd at Etihad Stadium will be talking about the game for many years to come.
The Saints might have won the game - thanks to Michael Gardiner's memorable last minute heroics and a towering pack mark and a goal that is already part of Saints' folklore - but Geelong can come away from the six point loss with just as much confidence as the Saints.
It might be St Kilda which is now the only unbeaten team in the competition after 14 rounds, while Geelong has just lost its first game of the season and only its fourth in 59 matches, but everything was in the Saints' favour on Sunday and yet the Cats so nearly pinched a game they had no right to win.
For a start the game was being played in front of virtually a full St Kilda house - with only a few thousand Cats' fans getting in - after the AFL failed in its bid to switch the game to the 100,000 capacity MCG, where everyone with even a passing interest in the AFL acknowledges the game should have been played.
But while the MCG sat vacant on Sunday and 40,000 extra (mostly Geelong) fans that could have attended the game were forced to watch it on television - the Saints fans created the kind of hostile atmosphere that would have not been out of place at such famous football venues as Old Trafford and Anfield in England.
And it inspired the Saints as they raced to a five goal to nil lead after just 17 minutes.
It would turn out to be a matchwinning lead as the best defence the AFL has seen in decades - with St Kilda on track this year to concede the least number of points ever since the competition reverted to 22 rounds in 1970 - held firm against the AFL's best attack.
The Cats might have gone into the game averaging 116 points per game this season but the pre-game loss of 2007 Norm Smith Medalist and their leading goalkicker this season in Steve Johnson with a hip injury was a blow they simply could not recover from against a defence that is still yet to concede 100 points in a game this season.
But incredibly it was not Johnson who the Cats missed the most on Sunday but Brad Ottens, who seems to be taking forever to come back from the knee injury he sustained in Round 2.
Ottens continued absence has hurt the Cats all year but no other opposition team has been good enough to take advantage until the Saints and the revitalised Gardiner came along.
Gardiner made Mark Blake look like the modest player he is and while Shane Mumford tried hard and increasingly appears the better back-up option to Ottens when he eventually returns, the pair were just no much for the inspired Gardiner.
And while the Saints may have also been without a ruckman in former Geelong skipper