The Geelong Cats yesterday stormed to their 10th Australian Football League (AFL) title with an 81-point demolition of a shell-shocked Sydney Swans in the Grand Final.
After charging to a 43-point lead before halftime, the Cats closed out the 20.13 (133)-8.4 (52) win in front of a heaving crowd of 100,024 people at the Melbourne Cricket Ground to hoist their first premiership cup since 2011.
“They’re hard to win and every side says it, but I think we deserved one,” said emotional Geelong captain Joel Selwood, who won his fourth AFL championship after Grand Final triumphs in 2007, 2009 and 2011. “This has been building for five or six years.”
Photo: AP
The showpiece match of Australian Rules football returned to the MCG for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, but the sell-out crowd at the sport’s spiritual home were denied anything like a contest.
The oldest and meanest team in the AFL, Geelong booted seven of the first eight goals in a ferocious start, dismantling a Swans midfield who appeared paralyzed by stage fright.
The Cats then shut down the match with six unanswered goals in the third quarter to trigger early celebrations in their sleepy home base an hour out of Melbourne.
“This is the pinnacle,” Geelong utility Patrick Dangerfield said. “Worth the wait and better than I could have ever imagined, it’s bloody special. We just played such a complete game.”
The Cats’ 16th win in succession capped one of their most dominant seasons, while erasing the heartbreak of their Grand Final thrashing by Richmond two years ago in Brisbane.
Geelong winger Isaac Smith kicked three goals and won the Norm Smith medal as the Grand Final’s best player, but plenty of his teammates had claims to the prize.
The Cats’ small forward Tyson Stengle top scored with four goals, while power forward Tom Hawkins booted three, igniting his team with the first two of the game as he outpointed Swans big man Tom Hickey twice in ruck duels.
More had been expected of the Swans, who came into the match on a nine-game winning streak, but they head home sore and sorry after humiliation on the game’s biggest stage.
“We’ll be back hungrier and better for it next year,” Swans cocaptain Dane Rampe said. “To our red-and-white supporters: Sorry. We failed you today.”
For the first time in almost 36 years, a Parisian derby will be played in French soccer’s top flight when reigning champions Paris Saint-Germain FC take on the nouveau riche Paris Football Club (PFC) today. Not one of the players involved in today’s match — PFC’s 38-year-old third-choice goalkeeper Remy Riou is almost certainly not going to be involved — was born the last time there was a Parisian derby in Ligue 1. That was on Feb. 25, 1990, when Moroccan midfielder Aziz Bouderbala scored a brace as Racing Paris 1 beat PSG 2-1 at the Parc des Princes home that
Stan Wawrinka’s 40-year-old legs did not let him down over three-plus hours in his first singles match of a farewell tour yesterday. Three-time Grand Slam singles champion Wawrinka beat Arthur Rinderknech of France, who is ranked 29th to Wawrinka’s 157th, 5-7, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5). The match went 3 hours, 16 minutes. Wawrinka last month announced that this year would be his last on the ATP tour. “Today was a tough battle ... it’s amazing to come here for the first time, to have so much support,” Wawrinka said yesterday. “Twenty years on tour, you kind of always play in the same place
BOUNCING BACK: Antetokounmpo had just returned from an eight-game injury absence last month, leading the Milwaukee Bucks to their third win in four games Giannis Antetokounmpo threw down the game-winning dunk with 4.7 seconds remaining to lift the Milwaukee Bucks to a 122-121 victory over the Charlotte Hornets and grab a slice of NBA history on Friday. The Bucks trailed by as many as 16 on their home floor, but Antetokounmpo scored 12 of his 30 points in the final quarter to help seal the win in a frantic finish that saw five lead changes in the final 45.7 seconds. The two-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) added 10 rebounds and five assists. It was his 158th regular-season game with at least 30 points, 10 rebounds and
Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka yesterday got her season off to a winning start for Japan in the United Cup, after the UK’s Emma Raducanu pulled out of their singles clash with a fitness issue, while in Brisbane, Taiwan’s Latisha Chan and Wu Fang-hsien crashed out of the women’s doubles. In Perth, despite Osaka’s win, the UK took the match 2-1 with a deciding mixed doubles victory. Osaka was too strong for reserve and 276th-ranked Katie Swan, winning 7-6 (7/4), 6-1 as Raducanu watched from the sidelines. “I’m proud of how I fought,” Osaka said. “I’d never played here, it was tough.” Britain
RSS