Past And A Presence Spur On Champions

The Sunday Age

Sunday September 14, 2008

Dan Silkstone

FOOTBALLERS, we all know, like to take things one week at a time; Robert Harvey and Nick Riewoldt did not disappoint last night. Both were focusing on one week, the funny thing is it wasn't the same one.

For Harvey a win meant one more week. It is a strange twist of mathematics that after 382 games one more can mean so much.

For Riewoldt, it was all about last week. Then, the Saint had been towelled up by Geelong first-year player Harry Taylor and had born the blame for his team's capitulation. It was all forgotten six days later as he produced a five-goal, 15-mark masterclass.

Harvey had also suffered against the Cats, but the days when he was expected to carry his team had long passed. Still, there was pressure of a different sort. Lose last night and one of the most storied careers in football was over.

Last week, the 37-year-old had been knocked and mocked in equal measure, his opponents asking if he wanted a chair and a blanket. He got one last night, starting on the bench in each quarter. Against Geelong, he had lost his rag in uncharacteristic fashion. The man who had once just run harder in the face of nuclear sledging looked gone.

It turns out he wasn't, racking up 22 valuable touches and contributing most when the game was in dispute.

He started on Dale Thomas, almost half his age. You worried for him, they looked mismatched in every way - not the least in hairstyles. Harvey's newly trimmed barnet clashing with Thomas's gen Y shag.

He got his first kick on the wing. A minute later he had a handball and then, with Thomas paying little attention, drifted forward, took the ball and threaded it to Justin Koschitzke for the first goal. As they ran back, he lined up on the edge of the square and nobody picked him up. In years past it would have been downright disrespectful. In truth, this year he has not demanded the hard tags that once followed him.

Robert Harvey is not Peter Pan but he shared with that character an ability to lose his shadow. Unlike Pan, Harvey has grown old. Last night he had no shadow to lose but left alone he still knew how to find the footy. When he got it, he wasted nothing, cherishing his freedom like a gun-toting Republican. On 17 minutes he collected the ball on centre-wing and landed a perfect pass on the chest of fast-leading Riewoldt. The Saints had two goals and both had been set up from Robert Harvey's rocking chair.

Soon after he was on Tyson Goldsack, another kid watching from too far away, as Harvey hit Riewoldt on the chest again for another goal.

Riewoldt - spilling marks in a sea of hands last week - much preferred a Collingwood one-on-one style that pitched him against a solo Nathan Brown. Together, in a first quarter that set the tenor for a comfortable win, the veteran and the key forward were the most influential men on the ground.

It wasn't easy. Late in the first, Harvey got smashed in a marking contest with John Anthony, got up gingerly and struggled to the boundary line, squatting low and heaving in breath. Everything hurt but still he kept on, though his influence faded. After the match, he looked spent and refused interview requests. Despite receiving a classy post-match honour-guard from his Collingwood opponents he wasn't ready yet to talk about the end.

Riewoldt had endured a week in which everything from his marking technique to his big-match temperament was questioned. Apparently both were in working order.

As the Saints took control of the match in the second, he snagged the ball time and again, led hard, kicked straight and gave off a goal to Jason Gramm. By three-quarter-time, Riewoldt had 14 marks and a new opponent in Nick Maxwell. The game was already over.

The goal that probably sealed it for St Kilda came at the 20-minute mark of the third term from the boot of Andrew McQualter. It was born, though, high on the wing when Harvey fed Riewoldt, who pumped the ball inside 50. Harvey left the field to a huge ovation at the 21-minute mark of the final term and Riewoldt was rested soon after. Saints coach Ross Lyon was thinking about one week too. Next week, and Hawthorn.