Four Bounces

Spring had well and truly hit Melbourne in September of 2002. It was warm, and spirits were as high as the pollen count.

There was one particular day that month I remember better than the other twenty-nine. And it wasn't the last Saturday.

Late in the afternoon on September 21, midway through the third quarter of the Prelim Final, there was a ball up in the left forward pocket of the MCG, metres from the Adelaide Crows goal. Jason Cloke, an incredibly underrated half-back and the man who summed up that season’s team, rose above Steve McKee and won a rough hit-out. Ben Johnson, who always seemed like his legs were travelling faster than the top half of his body, broke out of the pack with the Sherrin and found a galloping Ryan Lonie.

There were few better sights for a Magpie supporter in the early 2000s than Lonie careering down a wing with the red leather tucked under his arm. He was quick, carried the ball with the grace of Makybe Diva, and kicked it with the delicateness of a ballerina.

On this occasion though, one of those sights was being set up 100 metres further down the field.

The central lane of the most famous acreage in the country opened itself up for Ryan Lonie. He might as well have been alone. He helped himself to four bounces, each meeting of ball on turf raising expectations and belief. And then he kicked it. Perfectly weighted, perfectly timed, perfectly set up for the next guy.

Anthony Rocca.

Pebbles launched a long lead from deep forward, and Lonie caressed the ball into his enormous fingertips. The mark was taken outside the fifty, and he'd kick from just over the border of the centre square.

The painted arc is as much a psychological barrier as a geographical marker. Few players have treated it with the disdain Anthony Rocca did. He turned around and just hoofed it.

For the slightest moment, he lifted his weight up, balancing serenely on his left toes. We curled our toes with him. His right leg, which really belongs in a museum somewhere, swung with the timing of a pendulum. His right foot pointed towards goal. But more than that, it pointed towards a future we'd been waiting for.

There were 89,000 maniacs there that day. Three of them were my younger brother, younger sister, and myself. I was barely 17 years old, and we'd all started the day in disbelief that our parents had allowed us to enter the stadium without them. Looking back now, it must have been recognition of the stakes, and the possibility of joy that waited inside. They knew what it meant.

It was the first finals game that I'd ever attended, and we were perched amongst the thinning air at the top of the Ponsford Stand. The stand that Ryan Lonie had charged at. The end that Anthony Rocca sent the footy towards in that third quarter.

It had been a long twelve years growing up as a Collingwood supporter. I was five in 1990. In the seasons that had followed, the Pies had finished 7th, 12th, 8th, 4th, 10th, 11th, 10th, 14th, 15th, 16th and 15th.

For a kid who had made his football team a cornerstone of his personality, it was disorienting. There was an erasure of identity. It felt as if the very structure of the club had crumbled. Match day became a chore, another opportunity for heartbreak.

Then came Eddie, and then came Mick, rising like Batman out of a Lexus. The bravado of his signing announcement felt completely at odds with what we’d endured the past decade.

Malthouse has spoken about his love for that 2002 team, and, to this day, it remains my favourite Collingwood squad. In fact, my two favourite seasons were both years we fell agonisingly short, 2022's ride being the other.

The 2002 squad was the very definition of a team greater than the sum of its parts. Names such as Betheras, Lokan, McGough, Scotland, Rintoul, Kinnear, and Richardson aren't what most would describe as legendary. Outside of the Collingwood bubble, most wouldn't remember them at all.

Jason Cloke really did sum up how I felt about that team. My guernsey bore his number 34 on its back, which was often the source of much ridicule, or assumptions that it was a Mick McGuane hangover.

But I loved Clokey. He hadn't been blessed with the athleticism of a Tarrant, or the delicate touch of a Lonie, or the endurance of a Licuria, or anything much that Bucks possessed.

What he had was an ability to wring out every ounce of ability from what he'd been given. He worked as hard as any of the 36 guys out there. He would spoil before mark. He would collapse in front of a pack before waiting for a crumb. He would be the third man, constantly risking his own assignment to go and help his mates.

Cloke was the 2002 group personified. Grunt. Selflessness. System-driven. An entire club lined up behind a burdened purist in Nathan Buckley, and the ultimate father figure in Mick Malthouse. The similarities with the 2022 group are striking.

When Anthony Rocca hoisted the ball 70 metres for a goal in that prelim final, you could feel the collective unshackling. Thousands of Magpie fans released ten years of let down, and finally, together, we believed in something.

One of the enduring memories of that day was in the immediate aftermath of that goal. There were nearly 90,000 there that day. At least 80,000 of them were Collingwood supporters. A small city.

The eruption of emotion was incredible, and felt by every single person there. I turned first to my siblings, and saw their shared joy. Then, carried by the will of the football gods, I wrapped my arms around a young boy in the row in front us, and elatedly tossed him skywards.

As a parent now, I'd be mortified if someone did that to my kids. But that day, it made sense. It fit. The boys parents joined me in my overwrought celebration, and did the kid himself.

We went on to win the game and play in a Grand Final. While there was no premiership that year, Collingwood gave me something even better. They gave me back my love of footy, and the part of my identity that had been lost along the journey. They gave me back the version of myself who believed that sport could mean something. That belonging could survive disappointment. That faith, once fractured, could be rebuilt.

Somewhere between the sirens that afternoon, I stopped being a kid waiting for 1990 to happen again, and became a football supporter all over again.