Geelong eviscerate Sydney by 81 points in AFL grand final win for the ages

A flawless end to an immaculate season. Before Saturday, Geelong were the best team of 2022. Top of the ladder. On a 15-game winning streak. There to be beaten. The mostly likely side to do it were Sydney. But if form really does go out the window in big games, the Swans hurled theirs into oblivion in the grand final, blown away by 81 points by a Cats outfit as magnificent as their opponents were textureless.

This decider, on return to a full house of 100,024 at the MCG after a two-year hiatus, was a famous victory for the ages. The 20.13 (133) to 8.4 (52) result is theequal fifth-biggest grand final win in VFL/AFL history. It was also a belting with shades of Geelong’s 119-point 2007 premiership win over Port Adelaide, and one that was all but over after the opening quarter. A 35-point quarter-time lead – the biggest in a grand final for 33 years – set the Swans an almost-insurmountable task. They stemmed the bleeding in the second term but by the third the result was academic.

For Chris Scott, undoubtedly one of the best coaches the game has seen, it is a first piece of silverware since he won the flag in his first year at the Cats in 2011. Reward, too, for his smart list management. For turning age into an asset and fashioning a collective unit of consistency which was on display from the first siren to the last.

And for captain Joel Selwood, now a four-time premiership winner who kicked a goal late on in his 355th and possibly final game, it was all too much.

“They’re so hard to win, they’re so hard to win,” he said. “Every side says it, but I think we deserved one. Just been bashing away. We don’t apologise to being up there, having a crack at it each year.

“This has been built over five or six years. There have