Geelong defeated St. Kilda by 12 points in the 2009 AustralianFootball League (AFL) Grand Final played at the Melbourne CricketGround. Both sides advanced after winning their Qualifying andPreliminary Finals.

The AFL finals series groups the best eight teams into twogroups – the first through fourth and fifth through eighth. Thewinners of the Qualifying Finals (first v fourth, second v third)get a week off, the losers play the winners of the EliminationFinals (Fifth v eighth, sixth v seventh).

Australian rules football is played on a field 170-200 metreslong by 140-170 metres wide. The two teams consist of 18 players aside. Scores are quoted as goals-behinds (total).

St Kilda finished top of the ladder after the 22 Home and awayseason with only two loses in rounds 20 and 21. They defeatedCollingwood by 28 points in the Qualifying Final then the WesternBulldogs by seven points in the Preliminary Final.

Geelong finished second with four losses, all in the latter halfof the season. They defeated the Western Bulldogs by 14 points inQualifying Final then Collingwood by 73 points in the PreliminaryFinal.

Geelong player Gary Ablett Jr. won the Brownlow Medal earlier inthe week but quickly “forgot” about it to focus on the Grand Final.”We’ve prepared well, we’ve prepared as good as we can and we havesome important players back at the right time, it’s fantastic,” hesaid. “We’ll be going into the game with no excuses.”

Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster James Taylor predictedthat storms may pass over the MCG during the second, third or lastquarters. “That’s when we expect most likely we’ll see showeractivity spreading across Melbourne,” Mr Taylor told AAP.”Hopefully, the opening ceremony will escape the weather.Thunderstorms are certainly possible.” The police are also out inforce, and will check all drivers leaving the ground are notdrunk.

Geelong won the toss and kicked towards the City end. Thepredicted weather did not materialise in the first quarter Withinthe first eight seconds, the both teams had held up the ballcausing another ruck contest.

Quarter Time St Kilda 3-2 (20) Geelong 3-0 (18)

Half Time St Kilda 7-7 (49) Geelong 7-1 (43)

3 Quarter Time St Kilda 9-11 (65) Geelong 9-4 (58)

Full Time St Kilda 9-14 (68) Geelong 12-8 (80)

Geelong pressed ahead in the first two minutes. Max Rooke manageto kick the first goal right on a minute twenty. St Kilda pushedforward immediately but did not convert. Geelong pressed againscoring a goal on five minutes. St Kilda replied with a behind.

St Kilda kicked their first goal through Brendan Goddard oneight and a half minutes. They continued to pressure Geelongresulting in another goal to Lenny Hayes.

The quarter ended in a back and forth tussle. Adam Schneiderfinished the quarter with a goal.

The predicted rain started during quarter time and continuedthrough most of the second quarter but eased off towards theend.

St Kilda opened the quarter scoring a goal through Sean Dempsterwithin the first three and a half minutes to push there lead tonine points. Geelong maintained forward pressure for the next twominutes before St Kilda countered to no result. Geelong respondedto the counter with there own but did not score.

St Kilda pushed forward scoring a behind.

It took another ten nine minutes before either team scored agoal. Geelong scored that goal through Shannon Byrnes. they scoredthe next three goals through Gary Ablett, Tom Hawkins and PaulChapman.

St Kilda rounded out the quarter with goals to Clinton Jones,Justin Koshitzke and Schneider.

The third quarter started with Geelong kicking a behind. Soonafter, A St. Kilda player was sent off under the blood rule toreceive medical attention, before Geelong kicked another behind.Cameron Mooney then kicked the first goal of the third quarter,putting Geelong back in front by one point. Nick Riewoldt thenkicked a goal to put St. Kilda back in front, followed by anotherbehind. Riewoldt then attempted to kick another goal, but wassmothered on the goal line, scoring a behind. Another behind wasscored by St. Kilda soon after.

Paul Chapman then kicked his second goal to reduce the margin toone point, with 8:53 remaining in the quarter. Gary Ablett thenkicked a behind to three quarter time.

The fourth quarter started with Tom Hawkins kicking his secondgoal, reducing the margin to one point. Schneider then kicked abehind, increasing the margin back on two points. St. Kilda thenkicked another behind, increasing the margin to three points.Geelong then made up two of the behinds, and scoring a third todraw the score with 5min left. Paul Chapman then kicked his thirdgoal. Geelong then kicked another behind. St. Kilda then scored abehind, reducing the margin to one goal.

Max Rooke kicked a goal on the final siren to get Geelong to atwo goal win.

Paul Chapman won the Norm Smith Medal for being the best playeron the ground in the Grand Final.

The game was broadcast live on Channel 10 and One HD inAustralia; ESPN in the USA, United Kingdom and Ireland; TSN inCanada; and Australia Network in the Asia Pacific region. Some Peerto Peer websites streamed the game live.