Forget Saab stuff from me today - it’s Grand Final day. This is the final contest for 2008, our championship, our Superbowl - the final time we’ll get to see the greatest game on earth at the highest level for this year.

Australian Rules Football started in Melbourne back in the mid 1800s as a way for cricket players to stay fit during the winter months. If you grow up in Melbourne, as I did, then the game is in your blood. Some push the game out of their life, but for the majority who live there, they live, breathe, sleep and eat football.

Today will see the Geelong Football Club (the Cats) go for their second premiership in succession. They’ve been the dominant team of the last two years, winning 42 out of 44 games in the last two seasons. Their heart and soul is a young guy by the name of Gary Ablett Jr, a dominant utility player whose strength, elusiveness and pure athletic prowess are a joy to watch. The Cats aren’t about individuals, however. They are the epitome of team play.

Their opponents are the Hawthorn Football Club (the Hawks), who are quote possibly the future powerhouse of te AFL. They pride themselves on playing ‘unsociable football’, a brand of play that sees them hard at the ball regardless of the toll it might take on others. Their key player is a freak of nature named Lance “Buddy” Franklin, who became the first forward in around 10 years to kick 100 goals in a season (the holy grail for forwards in the AFL). It’s scary to think this guy’s got another 10 or 12 years left in his career.

One of the most famous grand finals in recent history was played between these two teams back in 1989. It was a brutal affair. In that game, Gary Ablett’s father (also named Gary Ablett) kicked nine goals in a losing team and was named best player on the ground - the closest he ever came to winning a premiership.

I’d love to see “junior’ get one back for his Dad, one of my favourite players of all time, and for the Cats to win today.

Saab stuff will return either later tonight, or tomorrow. If your cable TV channel broadcasts the AFL grand final (and it will, we watched it live in Canada back in 2004), then I strongly suggest you get some chips and drinks, sit back and enjoy the greatest game in the world.

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