Sydney superstar Adam Goodes personified his side’s never-say-die spirit by ignoring a serious knee injury to lead the Swans to a thrilling upset AFL grand final win at the MCG on Saturday.
In a see-sawing contest, minor premiers and clear pre-game favourites Hawthorn looked set to blow the Swans away in the first quarter and led by 12 points early in the last.
But Sydney prevailed 14.7 (91) to 11.15 (81) thanks to a brilliant sealing snap from defender Nick Malceski in front of 99,683 fans.
It was the Swans’ fifth premiership and second in seven years after their 2005 flag broke a 72-year drought.
Sydney kicked the game’s final four goals as a wayward Hawthorn managed just five behinds.
Malceski, who notched Sydney’s first goal from a near-impossible angle, snapped the stunning sealer with 34 seconds left after Hawthorn’s valiant Brad Sewell, arguably his side’s best, had missed with two snaps.
As with Hawthorn’s upset grand final win over Geelong in 2008, the losing side had considerably more scoring shots.
Only four members of Sydney’s 2005 premiership side – Goodes, Lewis Roberts-Thomson, Jude Bolton and Ryan O’Keefe – were in Saturday’s team.
O’Keefe won the Norm Smith Medal as best afield, racking up 28 touches and 15 tackles and quelling the crucial early influence of Sam Mitchell.
There were plenty of other heroes.
Coach John Longmire confirmed post-game that Goodes ruptured the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) in his left knee early in the second quarter, when the Swans had just begun an eight-goal run which turned a 19-point deficit into a 28-point lead.
The co-captain still proved a match-winner, including snapping the game’s second-last goal.
“I asked him a couple of times during the course of the game ‘Are you alright?’ He didn’t even flinch, it was ‘Don’t worry about me,'” Longmire said.
“To have a knee that was essentially gone and hang on like he did was a sensational effort.”
There were other similar stories.
Bolton had played with partially torn knee ligaments for weeks, but still made a valuable contribution.
Ted Richards battled an ankle injury and Hawks superstar Lance Franklin, who threatened to tear the game away from the Swans with an inspired third term.
But Franklin’s eventual return of 3.4 and another shot out on the full proved insufficient.
Courageous youngster Dan Hannebery battled O’Keefe for best afield honours while former Hawk Josh Kennedy punished his old club.
But there were two far more unlikely heroes.
The prospect of former West Coast and Richmond fringe player Mitch Morton becoming a 2012 premiership player seemed remote even a few months ago but, in his fifth Swans game, he bobbed up with two second-term goals and an even more important last-quarter assist.
Topping that as an against-the-odds story, ex-Canada rugby union international Mike Pyke was among the Swans’ best, carrying the ruck load alone in the final term after Shane Mumford was subbed off.
Longmire, a 1999 premiership player with North Melbourne, took just as much pleasure watching his charges beat the odds.
“To see the 22 players experience it, some for the second time, but many for the first time is one of the great experiences I’ve had, to be able to see the joy in their faces and get reward for what’s been a fantastic season,” Longmire said.