Sydney ended the longest premiership drought in VFL-AFL history in the most emotional and heart-stopping fashion imaginable by beating West Coast by four points in the most exciting and closest grand final for nearly 40 years on Saturday afternoon at the Melbourne Cricket Ground before an attendance of 91,828.

PAUL GOUGH for Sportal noted: Incredibly the outcome of the entire season came down to the last second of the game when the Eagles, trailing by four points, had one last chance to win the grand final when ruckman DEAN COX pumped the ball forward to within 30 metres of goal as a huge pack flew for the mark.

A crowd of 91,828 fans held their breath and it was Sydney's courageous defender Leo Barry who assured himself a place in AFL folklore for ever by taking a magnificent mark to ensure the Swans hung on to win their first premiership since 1933.

The Swans won 8.10-58 to 7.12-54 in the lowest scoring grand final since 1968, but what the game lacked in goals it more than made up for with pure courage as both teams simply refused to surrender in the kind of premiership decider seen so rarely in the AFL in modern times.

The Swans' pre-match banner read "Two cities, one team, together living a dream" and that is exactly how it turned out for old South Melbourne fans – so used to decades of heartbreak – and Sydney fans, celebrating the club's first flag since moving to the Harbour City in 1982 – went mad with joy in unison as the final siren sounded.

The result means every state in the AFL's truly national competition has now tasted premiership success and no-one deserves the triumph more than Swans' coach Paul Roos, who finally has a premiership medal after missing out during his 356 game career as a player when the closest he came was being part of the Swans' losing 1996 grand final side.

But Roos, renowned as one of the coolest customers in the AFL, must have had a heart attack in the incredible last quarter, in which both teams threatened to self-destruct under the most fierce pressure imaginable.

Veteran commentator Mike Sheahan wrote in Monday's Herald Sun: The Grand Final and its climax was a magic moment in the history of sport in Victoria, make that Australia, given where the premiership cup has gone for the first time.

It wasn't an exhibition, yet it was a classic contest. Gripping theatre that held more than 90,000 people at the MCG spellbound for the best part of three hours.

The Paul Roos theme is simple: you play one on one and aim to beat the other bloke more often than he beats you. Sydney has won the flag kicking 40 goals in four matches. The Sundance Kid, as Kevin Sheedy christened Roos, is an extraordinary success story. So cool, so measured, so positive, so assured, so smart, so mature.

Sydney finally has an AFL flag, South Melbourne finally shed the millstone of the longest wait in football history for a fourth flag. The relocation from Lakeside Oval all the way to Australia's biggest city, so emotional, so chaotic during the early 1980s, has had a fairytale ending. Skilton, Round, John, Goldsmith and Rantall, some of the most famous names in South Melbourne's history, embraced the moment with all the emotion and pride they would have shown had the Swans still been based in Melbourne.

Amazing to think the battling old Swans, who had played (and lost) only two finals in 35 years in the VFL before moving to Sydney, have blossomed into the champion team of the national competition.

THE MATCH
Reported by Peter Hanlon for The Age:

The script said it would be close, that Sydney would win the hard balls and West Coast the clearances. By quarter-time the advantage in each area was double as Chris Judd exploded from the blocks as if part of the traditional daytime fireworks display, and the Swans' commitment gave them a lead they would not have had if only the Norm Smith Medallist had someone to kick to.

Luke Ablett could not keep up with Judd, but few can.

Fifteen minutes into the match, he had spirited the ball away from stoppages six times, taken five bounces deep in his team's defence, and earned the attention of Jared Crouch as Ablett retreated to the bench.

But the Eagles had lost his on-ball partner Daniel Kerr to a leg injury after six minutes, and Dean Cox's long run and goal down the members' wing hinted at a lack of options in attack that demanded scores come from further afield.

In this Michael Gardiner was most culpable, failing to make a contest despite his height advantage over Barry. Gardiner's only contribution came courtesy of a soft free-kick, his only shot on goal hit the post.

Lewis Roberts-Thomson began with a bang across half-back for the Swans and was in everything, but David Wirrpanda did likewise at the other end. Darren Jolly and Barry Hall's goals, also from frees, were not in keeping with the intensity of the opening.

By half-time, West Coast had taken one mark in its forward 50, and a blanket of red and white bodies shielded the ball from danger every time it hit the ground.

Michael O'Loughlin, the busy Adam Goodes and the rebounding Tadhg Kennelly all goaled for Sydney in the second term; the Eagles managed only three points.

Kerr had hobbled off a second time, and even with Ben Cousins doing his part on Sean Dempster, Judd's actions summed up the situation – starting his team's attacks, then charging forward and trying to finish them as well. An apparent mark on the goal line was denied; he could not do it all.

Even with a half-time lead of only 20 points, the sense that Sydney would kill the contest with the next goal was palpable. But Andrew Embley threaded the needle from the pocket, O'Loughlin and Hall spilled chest marks, then Hall and Buchanan missed what they might have got.

The winds of change billowed the Eagles' wings, and suddenly it was the Swans who seemed deflated. Gardiner finally took a mark, and the body contact that went with it, Ashley Sampi swooped on everything that fell to ground, and Adam Hunter, moved forward as John Worsfold moved to save the day, trumped Embley's effort from beyond the boundary.

Sydney's lead at the last change was just two points.

O'Loughlin's kicking yips caught on at the other end when Ablett passed across goal in search of Barry, but found only Cousins 10 metres out. Hunter marked between the posts and ran around to screw a second – the Eagles were 10 points to the good. "Lazarus" Kerr was back and getting kicks; the momentum shift appeared final.

What happened next defines the Swans. Hall, with nerves of steel, goaled from beyond 50, then burst through a pack to find O'Loughlin. He missed again as Daniel Chick flipped a handstand on the mark, but the subdued Kirk and Jude Bolton, helmet covering his cut head, dived on boots, ball and opponents in a breathtaking finish.

Buchanan was inspired, burrowing through traffic, tackling ferociously and finally mimicking Nick Davis's winner from a fortnight earlier when he roved Jason Ball's reverse tap, slithered past Wirrpanda and wobbled through the winner.

The 13 minutes that followed were as dramatic as any played.

Brent Staker ran over the ball with the goals before him, O'Loughlin turned possession over rather than take a shot, and Kirk and Cousins connected with frightening force, yet both were back on their feet by the time Drew Banfield's kick from the spillage hit the post.

Bolton missed everything from the top of the goal square as Judd clung to his tail like cans trailing a wedding car, Kennelly hared out of defence toe-poking the ball in front of him, Wirrpanda kicked out over Mark Nicoski's head, but Paul Williams added another of the four points after Buchanan's goal.

With the clock on 32 minutes, Dean Cox drove the ball forward for the last time in 2005. Players scrambled to meet it and Barry took what in any week might have been mark of the day. On this day, it was the greatest mark in 72 years.
__________

l The Swans won their first premiership since 1933 – breaking a 72-year drought of 1476 matches in which 2,738 players were used during the 26,292 days which elapsed ... (note: *players used* is the total number of players used in each separate season) ... 1330 players have played VFL-AFL football for South Melbourne-Sydney since 1897 ...

l Nine played all 26 matches of Sydney's 2005 season – Leo Barry, Craig Bolton, Amon Buchanan, Jared Crouch, Adam Goodes, Barry Hall, Tadhg Kennelly, Brett Kirk and Ryan O'Keefe ...

uuuu

uuuu

uuuu

l The Sydney Swans have been locked out of their spiritual home for their post-Grand Final party.

The Swans refused to accede to a $20,000 fee – issued by the South Melbourne Soccer Club – for use of the Lakeside Oval on Sunday. Instead, they have transferred the family day to nearby Lindsay Hassett Oval, also in the Albert Park precinct.

Swans director Rob Pascoe said the cost with renting the former home ground, which was used for VFL matches on more than 700 occasions (704 in fact) between 1897-1981, were exorbitant. The Swans, who are hoping for their first premiership since 1933, were prepared to pay up to $8000 for use of the venue –
Damien Barrett, Herald Sun, September 23

uuuu

l On Grand Final day, Terry Brown noted for the Herald Sun: Pies cost $3.80 ... for $4.50, a gently-steamed bum holding a sausage with garlic afterburn and no discernible meat pieces ... the AFL Record cost $12 – can you believe it? ... face painting, while economical ($4 full face) was cheerful, but lacking in real artistry ... full-strength Carlton Draught $5.20 and just 20 cents dearer than the insipid light, came in 425ml plastic buckets ... there's always another story ...

uuuu

THERE'S ALWAYS A PARALLEL ...
You better believe this ...

3AW's Graeme Bond displayed an amazing capacity at a function in Melbourne last Friday. He repeated his predictions to 3AW listeners on Saturday afternoon before the game ...

Bondy's Omen's for a Swan's victory – the number 4 keeps appearing –
l The Swans are going for a 4th flag.
l First of all the Grand Final will be played on September the 24th:
l They go into the Grand Final on a winning streak of 4 games in a row in
Melbourne.
l West Coast go into the game heading for a 4th straight loss on the road.
l As a player and a coach combined this will be Paul Roos' 440th game.
l Roos has coached the Swans to 4 wins in finals.
l If the Swans win it will be his 4th win head to head against John Worsfold.
l What about their captain Barry Hall – How many letters in his surname? – 4 of course.
l What about the Christian names: Luke, Paul, Jude, Amon, Nick, Sean, Adam, Ryan, Adam & Paul – 10 of the 22 have 4 letters in their Christian name.
l The Swans magic number this year has been 13: When they kick 13 or more
goals in a game they win: 13 – 1+3 = 4.
l This is the Swans 4th game at the MCG this year.
l How many times have the Eagles already played at the MCG this season? – 4 appearances.
l FOUR Swan players have had Grand Final Experience – Jason Ball, Michael
O'Loughlin, Nick Davis, Barry Hall.

You know we always support the Victorians in the GF ...
l Well, West Coast have 4 Victorians in their side ...
l Sydney have two lots of 4 Victorians in their side, they have 8 ...

l Ben Matthews who wears Number 4, has played 24 games for the year.
l The last time the sides played: The margin was 4 points.
l How many first gamers have the Swans tried this season? – 4 - Dempster,
Vogels, Malceski, Moore.
l If Sydney wins, Paul Williams will have waited the longest of any player in the history of the game to play in a premiership, and he is due to play his 294th game.
l If Sydney wins, the Premiership Cup will be presented by former captain and 4-time Sydney best and fairest winner Paul Kelly.
l The Swans have played 1476 games since their last premiership in 1933.
l This is the 40th consecutive grand final I will attend.
l My tip: SWANS by 4 points.

You'd better believe that!

uuuu

EVERY new player drafted to Sydney goes through an induction process that includes watching a video with some black and white images of Swans legends.

It took this to really know what they'd done: a city conquered end to end, and of all the things Paul Roos has found hard to believe in the past week, this seemed the most fantastic.

The scenes in Sydney yesterday made Leo Barry's mark on the siren last Saturday seem commonplace. That was easy. This was ludicrous: in the heart of rugby league country and two days before that code's grand final, the streets were a sea of red and white, with tens of thousands celebrating that other game from the south.

Thirty-thousand, they said. That, and maybe more. Lots. It seemed the Victorian capital had finally won an age-old battle, the invaders coming up George Street on foot, armed with flags and small children and singing that infernal battle song: " Cheer, cheer, the red and the white …". Over and over.

In speeches, the Lord Mayor and the Premier and the NSW Governor acknowledged the national game, a grand grand final in that other city, and a team that used to bear the name South Melbourne. They had won the greatest trophy, said Morris Iemma, and brought it here.

Was this Sydney, at lunchtime, on a Friday, in September? It was, and if the crowd was racking its brains to remember the last time the city rocked like this – "It was the Olympics," said one with certainty – that was nothing compared with the disbelief on the faces of the Swans.

Did this embrace seal the meaning? "I think it does," Roos told the Herald, calm as ever but betraying the slightest hint this had jolted even him. "We had the parade in Melbourne and the parties and then the SCG, but this is just amazing."

He signed autographs, shook hands, posed for pictures and then, when officials tried to usher him inside, he turned and waved again. He was moved; another man was forlorn. The lone West Tigers fan looked scared. Two days before his own big day, this surely wasn't right, but having taken temporary ownership of the CBD the Swans were generous. "It's your week next week, mate," he was told. "This is ours." Had the Tiger had some mates, they might have been incited to fight back, given the rhetoric from the podium. Mr Iemma was so roused that Roos suggested he give motivational talks to his players. Clover Moore was beaming, happy her constituents were grinning like pianos on a perfect Sydney day.

But as she often does, the Governor, Marie Bashir, quietly stole the show, knowing just what to say and how to say it. For starters, it sounded like she'd written the words herself, and unlike the other two leaders she had attended the game. She heaped praise on the southern capital and spoke lyrically of the game. " Australian rules," she said, noting the beauty of the name.

Nick Davis, goal-kicking hero, worked his way down a line of fans, reflecting that this would surely help the team and the code. "It's great for the game," he said. Great indeed, and while no one would pretend that one day, one week and one parade constitute a war won, in combination they suggest a major battle over. Yesterday the Swans were the city; that won't last, but they can retreat to their corner of it knowing it's secure.

A little after 1 o'clock it was over. Barry Hall disappeared inside – relieved, you suspect, because partying like that for a week takes its toll even on the big and the bad. But Brett Kirk – Buddhist, tough guy - lingered. He looked like he'd sign his name and smile all day if they wanted him to. "It's a dream," he said.

After 72 years of nightmares, they'd surely earned that.

uuuu

In a lavish event later (at the Hilton Hotel), Kirk finally shook off his bridesmaid tag, having finished runner-up in 2003 to Adam Goodes, and again finishing second to Barry Hall in 2004.

Kirk polled 575 votes to beat Hall, last year's Skilton medallist, by 74 votes. Defender Craig Bolton, a quiet achiever on the Swans list, was third, with the man who snapped the winning goal in the grand final, Amon Buchanan, finishing fourth on 442 votes.

Kirk, who along with Hall is considered one of the two leading candidates for the captaincy of the club in 2006, had yet another spectacular season. He led the entire AFL in tackles with 136, and was sixth in the competition in disposals (leading the Swans) with 570.

Jared Crouch was last night voted as the inaugural winner of the Paul Roos Best Finals Player Award finishing with 119 votes over the four weeks of the finals.

Swans Life Membership was awarded to Roos, 150-game players Adam Goodes and Ben Mathews, director John Gerahty and long-time reserves team manager Graeme Cox.

– with MICHAEL COWLEY

If the champagne goes flat, the party could be over very quickly.

Luke Ablett will be remembered as the man who kicked across the goal. He will hear jokes about it for years and one day realise how lucky he is. Imagine if the Swans had lost.

Michael O'Loughlin is another lucky man. Four times, he failed to put the game away. Barry Hall stood tall when it counted. Jason Ball, an old-fashioned ruckman playing his last game, made the winning goal for Amon Buchanan, little known before the game.

Not any more. "Know Colac?" people will ask in pubs. Then to help identify the town, they will say: "It's where Amon Buchanan's from."

In pre-match analyses, Lewis Roberts-Thomson was routinely described as the Swans' weakest defender. The Roberts-Thomsons are a family of gentlemen sportsmen from Tasmania. Harold Roberts-Thomson was a state champion at billiards and snooker.

I played football with two young men of the name, both destined to become doctors. Bruce Roberts-Thomson played in an athletic, intelligent way; Carlton pursued him as a schoolboy.

Last Saturday, Lewis Roberts-Thomson did the family sporting tradition proud. Someone said the ball kept finding him. Not so. He read a hectic game better than anyone around him.

As a boy, Roberts-Thomson played rugby union, the game we are told is played in heaven. Ours is the game they play in the dreamtime, the place where land and memory merge as one.

Go the Swans with the Opera House on your guernsey. Go the Bloods. Go all the memories gathered at the ground last Saturday, including the young man dressed as Warwick Capper. Go all the houses around South Melbourne that were again flushed with red and white pride as one of the game's old spirits was revived.

Brett Kirk acknowledged the Bloods from the victors' podium, clutching the red heart of his guernsey. Kirk's the Buddhist from the bush, the man who followed Paul Kelly in branding Sydney with a virtue of old Australia – courage without regard for self.

After the game, I saw Kirk gesture to an old South player with his premiership medal in a way that was the opposite of male boasting, the sort of gesture used by Swedish tennis stars like Mats Wilander to signal that the real power lies within.

West Coast is a prototype of the game's future but it had no luck. In retrospect, it was one of those years when the result seems fated. The Swans were a team of character abounding in characters who played old-fashioned footy built around the game's first principle – one for all, all for one.

Even Nick Davis, who plays with such casual boyish grace, looked committed to the cause. It is tempting to think the Swans' isolation from mainstream football culture has played a part in making them so committed to one another.

Then there was Tadhg Kennelly's run. That had it all – nerve, daring, control – and was outrageously at odds with the character of the match at that time. West Coast was bending Sydney, trying to break it.

Interestingly, when I was recently in Ireland, I gathered the northern Irish play their football like the Swans play ours — hard, lots of players behind the ball. Kennelly's mob, the Kerrymen, are the Brazilians of Irish football. We saw the pride of Kerry football at the MCG last Saturday.

At some point in great games, the script no longer matters. The thing unrolls like a carpet and has a life of its own, or lives of its own. Enter Leo Barry. As with all great moments, we must consider its context.

Paul Roos is – in one respect – the most defensive coach in the history of the game. He floods like the Nile. The Swans are drilled like the military. Not even Davis' brilliant and seemingly intuitive last-gasp goal against Geelong two weeks earlier was unscripted. Practised it a hundred times, said Roos. Barry's entire career has been a study in eccentricity of a certain old Australian kind. As a child, he was an antipodean Evel Knievel, delighting in riding his trike off the end of the veranda on the family property.

As a footballer, he made a name by falling from heights while trying to catch the ball in a way that represents the most exciting part of our game, but is also fraught with risk.

He took another in the final moment of the game, coming from the side, something only the great aerialists do. The pack from which he snatched the ball included Chris Judd.

The game's most dangerous player required one last heroic deed to stamp his name indelibly on the match. Four million people were watching with a mixture of dread and fingernail-swallowing apprehension when Barry made his leap.

Later, asked to explain, he said he saw the ball coming and thought he would "have a crack". And I thought the man from Snowy River was dead.

NOT only was Sydney the AFL's premier team of 2005, it was the most popular with television viewers, and by a decisive margin. The Swans generated television audiences totalling almost 22 million, a massive 4.3 million ahead of the next best, their Grand Final opponent, West Coast. They played more games (26) than any other team, yet the total number of viewers -- free-to-air and Fox Footy -- is a graphic reflection of the unique value of their Sydney base. It translated into commercial terms late in the season when Citibank agreed to pay an estimated $900,000 for naming rights to the back of the Sydney guernsey. The club's long-term major sponsor QBE Insurance and Citibank will pay almost $3 million between them next year for the rights to the front and back of the guernsey. Sydney chief executive Myles Baron-Hay said last night: "I think it reconfirms the importance of a successful Sydney Swans to the national competition. The biggest gap has been the Sydney market, which is the largest in the country and has been the hardest one to win." The Grand Final was worth an estimated four million viewers to both Sydney and West Coast, leaving them well clear of the pack. Essendon was the most popular club in the home-and-away season, marginally ahead of the Swans, but didn't play finals. Geelong was the big surprise, finishing fourth overall and fifth in the home-and-away series. Yet the sad reality for Victorian clubs is that only Geelong, St Kilda and Essendon finished in the top eight on the television ladder. Sydney, West Coast and Adelaide headed the table, with the Kangaroos, Western Bulldogs, Carlton and Richmond occupying the bottom four places. AFL general manager of broadcasting, strategy and major projects Ben Buckley said last night the overall figures were pleasing. "We ended up 1 per cent up (on last year) nationally after the finals after being marginally down after the home-and-away series," Buckley said. He said clubs such as the Bulldogs and Richmond could expect to bridge the gap next year based on more productive TV timeslots. "The differences in the figures basically are reflective of the timeslots teams play in and the size of their respective markets. For example, Geelong had an increased number of Friday and Saturday nights this year (nine)," Buckley said. Richmond had just one Friday night game and many of its matches were exclusive to Fox.

Total TV audiences for 2005
(free-to-air and Fox Footy)

uuuu

Jake Niall speaks to the players frozen forever in the moment that won the 2005 flag, and tells why Leo Barry’s magical mark might yet become football’s most famous image.

THE mark of a mark’s worth is the celebrations it inspires, the folklore it forges and, in Leo Barry’s case, the legal dispute it launched.

And, most of all, the premiership it secured.

In the surreal fi nal seconds of 2005, seven players converged suddenly, as if sucked together by a magnetic force, to form that monstrous pack 20 metres from goal. Each man had his own agenda. One audacious defender floated across and above the rest.

Chris Judd was there, because, as his teammate Mark Seaby correctly observed, "Juddy was everywhere". The Norm Smith medallist harboured a faint hope of marking it. "I was trying to take the mark, but was never really going to get it," Judd said this week.

Seaby had a more realistic crack at it. He thought he might have grabbed glory, if not for Barry flashing in front of him. "I knew roughly where the kick was going to go. I thought, yeah, I’ll just have a run and jump at it ... if it ended up making its way to me, I thought I was in, yeah, not a bad position to take it."

Sydney’s Lewis Roberts-Thomson, a disciplined defender, simply wanted to make a contest. Another Swan, Tadhg Kennelly, was intent on preventing Ashley Sampi from marking, and arguably grabbed his man’s jumper, though he disputes this. "I don’t really think I’m actually pulling his jersey," said the Irishman.

"Because if you look at the video of the time, I’m actually not holding his jumper. I’ve put my hand on Ashley to actually get to him ... well maybe I have, but I didn’t think I did, but I was just basically sprinting just to get there."

Sampi thought he was alone and was surprised when the crush of bodies descended upon him. His heel was clipped, forcing him to mistime his jump.

Amon Buchanan bravely hurtled backwards into the thunder, squinting at the instant when Leo leapt from stage right. Nic Fosdike was the invisible eighth man lurking at the back for the spillage that didn’t eventuate. His mouth is agape – behold the miracle! – as Barry marks.

The Mark has its own mystery, and that, principally, is why Barry opted for such a high-risk option instead of a spoil. His answer yesterday, after some contemplation, was that the Swans needed possession. "We needed to get hold of the ball and take up some time. We didn’t know how much time was left on the clock."

The television footage of "the Mark" is less revealing than the photographs, in which the moment is cryogenically frozen, giving us a hint of the various sub-plots.

Like Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, the still picture of the Mark has one central Saviour and major protagonist, but if you look closely, there is something going on with each and every member of the support cast.

It’s surely on the cards that the latter Leo’s masterpiece will become the subject of a Toyota commercial in due course. In a decade or so, it stands a good chance of usurping the Wayne Harmes tap-in of 1979, Barry Breen’s winning point (1966), and "Jesaulenko, you beauty" (as Mike Williamson called Jezza’s famed mark in 1970) as the grandest of grand final moments.

"Leo Barry, you star," was how commentator Stephen Quartermain called the mark for Channel Ten. In the seconds after the siren sounded – he, like Barry, recognised the siren had gone only when a joyous Kennelly jumped on Barry – the caller had already defi ned the mark as historic. "They’ll talk about Leo Barry’s mark forever," he told the four million viewers.

Quartermain this week assessed the moment as "the most important mark in grand fi nal history". How so? "You have a look at the picture and Mark Seaby was ready to grab it, wasn’t he ... Is it the most famous? Well, you’d have to say Jezza’s is above that at this time, because I mean (there’s) Mike Williamson’s famous piece of commentary and also the fact now that it’s been going for 36 years."

It’s a measure of the Mark’s signifi cance that, a matter of months later, the question of the image’s ownership and worth are in dispute, with Barry seeking fi nancial compensation for the unauthorised use of the iconic image in TABs and elsewhere. The AFL reckons the Mark is worth only about $20,000 to Barry and has dared the Swan and his manager Ron Joseph to take the league on in court in what would be a test case for the intellectual property rights of players.

Joseph said yesterday that the AFL’s response to Barry’s compensation claim was "if you want to take us on, take us on. We don’t want to be seen having a public brawl with the Sydney captain, but we’re prepared to make an offer".

The Barry camp, lawyers in tow, wants more information about the AFL’s multimillion-dollar fi nancial arrangements with Tabcorp, which used the Mark to promote its footy betting.

THE legal stoush over the Mark is but one example of how that instant has changed Barry’s life. It has eclipsed everything else in an otherwise excellent career, just as there is only one point to the whole of Breen’s life, despite 300 games and the financial sacrifice that helped save his club from bankruptcy.

The magnitude of the Mark did not dawn on him the instant he took it, but Barry confirmed that the Mark now utterly defines him in the eyes of the public. "I know I’ll always be remembered as the bloke who took that mark."

Barry does not mind, however, being labelled in this way. "I suppose, being remembered for something like that ... a sensational moment in a football club, it doesn’t really worry me."

We cannot say what would have happened had Barry missed his mark, but it’s fascinating to ponder the possibilities, including the mundane one of a spill, soon followed by a ball-up and then the final siren.

Had Seaby plucked the ball instead of leaping Leo, the young Eagle ruckman would have taken a shot at goal after the siren in what surely would have ranked as the most momentous moment in grand final history.

If the umpire had courageously ruled that, as the photograph suggests, Sampi's jumper was held by Kennelly, then Sampi would have taken that money shot. It would then become not simply the highest-stake kick in 110 years, but probably the most contentious umpiring decision on record. "(And) I'd be in a pub in Ireland somewhere," quipped Kennelly, when asked the "what if a free had been paid" question.

Sampi suggested his grand final badge might have been torn by Kennelly. "It was on the whole game and I think it was only half ripped off, so just out of anger losing a grand final, I just ripped it completely off after that."

But, given the maelstrom, he cannot be certain Kennelly grabbed him. "I'm not too sure … I wasn't in too many contests before that. I'm not too sure, really." It matters not one whit now, and as Judd graciously noted, "this sort of thing would have happened a 100 times during the game and they can't all be paid. I don't think we were short-changed out of winning the game."

If Barry hadn't clasped the ball, could an Eagle have gathered the crumb and snapped the premiership-deciding goal in the handful of seconds left? It is noteworthy that none of those interviewed by The Age this week could recall whether there was an Eagle or Swan standing "front and centre" of the pack. Everyone's eyes were too trained on the ball to notice.

What also is surprising – and perhaps a tribute to Channel Ten eschewing the countdown clock – is that none of the players around the pack knew that the game would end in a handful of seconds. "For those last five or six minutes, you really didn't really know whether there was a minute or 30 seconds to go," Kennelly said. "You just knew it was close."

Sampi added: "I didn't think the siren was going to go four or five seconds later, no. I thought … maybe another three or four minutes to go, but it was that quick." Clearly, the coaches couldn't get messages out about how much time was remaining.

Kennelly and Roberts-Thomson, despite their vantage points, didn't even know who had marked. Kennelly had sprinted from the wing to man-up Sampi.

"I was a couple of feet behind him, so I was thinking, 'F---, I've got to go flat out here because he's a chance of marking this'," the Irishman said.

"I've just ran full out basically with him … and next thing I know there was 10,000 on top of me or whatever and I didn't really know who had marked because I was underneath it … I just heard a roar and I kind of fell, I kind of stumbled to the ground and I turned around and I saw the footy in Leo's hands. I just couldn't f---in' believe it."

Roberts-Thomson, too, had felt the defenders' responsibility to spoil or contest when he saw "someone floating across the pack". "I didn't know who it was. Thankfully, it was Leo."

The beauty of the mark was not simply Barry's flawless timing and clean take, but the fact that he seemingly came from the clouds. Unlike so much of today's game, there was a glorious uncertainty from the moment Dean Cox launched his desperate bomb towards goal.

Seaby said the speculative kick just begged for an Eagle to pluck a "brilliant mark" or quickly snap a goal. "Unfortunately, Leo Barry took a brilliant mark and not one of us."