Published>Sat, Sep 25 10 10:08 PM
Australian Rules football's Grand Final ended in a draw for just the third time in 114 years when the St Kilda Saints fought back to tie 68-68 with the Collingwood Magpies on Saturday.
Midfielder Lenny Hayes snatched a late point in the dying minutes to raise the Saints' hopes of a second premiership title after a 44-year wait, but the siren sounded with scores locked to leave more than 100,000 fans at a packed Melbourne Cricket Ground stunned.
Exhausted players slumped to the ground in the knowledge that they would have to play off again next Saturday, as an eerie silence descended over the stadium.
"Instinctively again, there's a sense of numbness and a whole range of emotions -- frustration, anger, relief," said St Kilda coach Ross Lyon, who took the Saints to a losing grand final last year to Geelong.
"Every ounce of our being will go into preparation and recovery, we'll come to rumble next week."
The last grand final to end in a draw was in 1977 when Collingwood, nicknamed The Magpies, drew with the North Melbourne Kangaroos. The Essendon Bombers and Melbourne Demons drew in the 1948 final.
Collingwood, a foundation club with blue-collar roots who command a massive following across the country, had met St Kilda in only one previous grand final in 1966.
The wrenching one-point loss gave their opponents their first and only premiership and etched the Saints' Barry Breen into folklore when he sent a wobbly kick wide of the goal-posts for a minor score to break the tie.
On Saturday, it was Collingwood's inaccuracy that was to prove decisive in the Grand Final, Australia's equivalent of the United States' Super Bowl.
WASTED CHANCES
After carving out a four-goal lead in a dominant first half, the Magpies squandered a raft of chances to put the blowtorch to St Kilda, with bulky full-forward Travis Cloke particularly culpable after spraying two six-point shots in quick succession for minor scores.
Having been let out of jail, the Saints pounced after halftime.
At the climax of a pulsating last quarter, Brendan Goddard soared like an eagle over a pack of players to pluck the ball from mid-air and win a free kick in front of goals to put the Saints in front for the first time.
Cloke responded for Collingwood, booting an unmissable injury-time goal to snatch back a one-point lead, but Hayes emerged moments later to break Magpie hearts.
His desperate last shot evoked memories of Breen's famous point 44 years earlier as it bounced and dribbled past two defenders to cross the line, keeping the Saints' hopes of ending their drought alive.
The result left Mick Malthouse, coach of two losing grand finals with Collingwood in 2002 and 2003, non-plussed.
"I can't even answer, I guess that you're still alive means that you haven't lost, but you've got to play again so it means that you haven't won," he said.
The paucity of draws in Australian Football League (AFL) matches -- each season produces one or two from 176 games -- has seen administrators resist introducing extra time to decide the Grand Final, despite it being used to break ties in preceding matches in the postseason playoffs.
Next week's match will have extra time in the unthinkable event of a second consecutive draw.
"It's probably going to take this for the AFL to change the rules -- it's an absolute joke," livid Collingwood captain Nick Maxwell said in a televised on-pitch interview.
The AFL now faces a raft of logistical challenges to re-stage the match, ranging from ticketing to pre-game entertainment, but stands to reap another A$16-$20 million dollars ($15.36 million) from the replay, chairman Mike Fitzpatrick said.
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