GWS Giants scrap into preliminary final after awaking from slumber

“Restraint, soberness, the matured thought, the unselfish act, they are necessities of the barbarous state, the life of dangers,” wrote HG Wells in The Sleeper Wakes. It is also a necessity when Brisbane is pounding their forward line in a tight last quarter – 19 inside 50s to just seven for the Greater Western Sydney Giants.

In a game that lacked restraint – certainly from “Razor” Ray Chamberlain – and gave players little time for thought, the Giants’ Phil Davis, Zac Williams and the no longer underrated Nick Haynes were all that stood between the Lions and a preliminary final at the MCG. Between them, they would rebound the ball out of the Lions’ forward line 20 times.

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In a spiteful and pulsating game of football, a game where the lead changed no less than 10 times, it was this stringent defence that would ultimately prove the difference (well, that and Brent Daniels pouncing on a loose ball at half-forward and dashing away from Brisbane’s Alex Witherden to kick a right-foot banana through for the goal that put the Giants up by three points with little more than two-and-a-half minutes to play).

Less than a month ago, Haynes suffered a fractured cricoid, the ring of cartilage around the trachea. This was an injury that the Giants’ doctors had never seen before and was expected to rule him out until grand final day – which after his side was caught napping and dumped by 10 goals at home against the Western Bulldogs, was not much of a goal to work towards. But since then, the Giants have… awoken.

“Dourness is man’s tribute to unconquered nature,” Wells also writes in The Sleeper Wakes. It’s also an attribute of GWS tagger Matt de Boer who doesn’t really care for the term “unconquered”. Add the Lions’ Lachie Neale, who De Boer held to just two – yes two! – disposals in the last quarter.

While restraint, soberness and dourness helped carry the day for the Giants, they are not entirely unfamiliar with the life of dangers. Ladies and gentlemen of the Gabba, I give you Toby Greene.

Greene is a man seemingly impervious to scrutiny – and for the most part, the $25,000 worth of fines dished out by the AFL’s match review panel. Prior to being offered a one-match ban for making unreasonable or unnecessary contact to the eye region of Brisbane’s Lachie Neale on Saturday night (suggesting that there is eye contact to an opponent that is both reasonable and necessary) Greene had been charges 17 times but only missed six games through suspension.

His latest indiscretion comes just a week after a similar undisciplined act against the Bulldogs’ Marcus Bontempelli, and it was something 30,000 Lions fans had no issue reminding him of whenever his hands were anywhere near the ball – which they were… a lot.

Nobody had their hands on the ball more often than Greene did on Saturday night. All up, Greene had the ball 30 times and there isn’t much that the 25-year-old does on a football field that isn’t consequential. This was certainly true in the last quarter, when he had nine touches and three clearances.

The Giants do not lack for midfield strength, but without Greene they may miss that intangible of finals football – the x-factor that can turn a game in a moment.

The Giants, like Geelong with Tom Hawkins and his momentary lapse of judgement in belting West Coast’s Will Schofield in the head, will likely challenge the bans, as there is little downside to it – a $10,000 fine, opposed to the suspension being extended.

Related: Geelong star Tom Hawkins set to miss AFL preliminary final

It is difficult to see the Cats troubling flag favourites Richmond without their All-Australian full forward who kicked four goals on Friday night. Although, there remain at least a couple of things from Geelong’s 20-point win over the Eagles that would at least give the Tigers reason to pause.

One is relatively new, in the 21-year-old Esava Ratugolea who put a listless first week of finals behind him to twice mark strongly and goal in the opening quarter. The other is Geelong captain Joel Selwood who was the best player on the ground. Again, on his way to 13 kicks, as many handballs and seven inside 50s, Selwood consciously ignored every self-preserving impulse a normal person would have.

Selwood’s head already has more scars than an Adelaide Crows pre-season camp, and he added a few more on Friday night. He brings to mind Patrick Swayze in Road House, when he says: “Pain don’t hurt.”

You know that for Selwood though, losing does, perhaps more so as his decorated career draws to an end. Next season Selwood will be 32, as will Hawkins. Patrick Dangerfield is 30 in April, while Gary Ablett Jnr will turn 36 in May.

Geelong had to win on Friday night, as unlike the Brisbane Lions it is not a sign of better days to come, but the reality that their time is now. For Geelong though, they need to shake the dourness that had plagued their game in the weeks leading in to their semi-final. A barbarous state of mind will be required to make it through another week. And their skipper has just the head for it.