WHEN Luke Hodge was announced as the Norm Smith medallist, it was like a final dagger had been thrust into Gary Ablett's heart. Twice this week he had come to the dance ready to waltz away with the prizes; twice he had been denied.

Ablett had come to the dance on grand final day – and his quick feet had dazzled, as usual, as he jinked and shimmied past opponents and pirouetted out of tackles. But he had run out of partners. Too few Cats had brought the right dancing shoes.

If the Hawks play unsociable football, the players that perform it are largely unglamorous. A tank in Luke Hodge was adjudged best on ground, but it was a 44-gallon drum on legs who freewheeled for 10 minutes in the third quarter and won the game for the brown and gold.

Stuart Dew was a contentious draft selection for the Hawks, but Alastair Clarkson outsmarted everyone. Dew was brought to the club for his leadership as much as for his deadly left foot, but for much of the season his hamstrings were as tight as his guernsey.

He was seconded into Hawthorn's leadership group for September as the only premiership winner on their list, and in the third quarter of the grand final, when the game was stuttering and stammering, Dew struck hard and quick.

Defender Harry Taylor, who had been excellent for the Cats, fumbled the ball, Chance Bateman tackled him, Dew swooped on the loose ball and kicked truly from 50m off one step.

Dew then combined with Mark Williams for another, and when he kicked his second for the term after linking with Buddy Franklin, the margin suddenly was 30 points, and the game was effectively over.

Hawthorn led by three points at half time, but if not for Geelong's profligacy in front of goal, they should have trailed by three or four goals. And there still seemed an air of inevitability that the Cats would recalibrate their radar in the second half. It had all seemed so easy early on.

Deep in the first quarter time stood still. Cameron Mooney had the ball on the boundary line at the city end. He hit the pause button, and the game froze. Mooney looked infield for options, but it was like watching one of those telestrator moments the pundits on the box use to map out a passage of play – everything was static, the players rooted to the spot.

So the big Cat turned on his heel, still with teammates and opponents immobile, dropped the ball onto his boot and speared it through – low and hard – from 30m. There was a kind of majesty about the play, a sort of easy grace that seems to attach to the Cats at their best.

But Geelong wasn't at its best often enough. Mooney missed a sitter on the half-time siren, and then hit the post with his first shot on goal in the second half. Too often his teammates missed targets coming into a largely dysfunctional forward line.

In truth the sorely inaccurate 11.23 final tally for the Cats was illusory – the Hawks ran or handballed through almost a dozen rushed behinds. In the third quarter, just before Hawthorn seized control of the match, Campbell Brown bolted towards the Geelong goal, took two bounces and handpassed through a point. It was all about the Hawks having the chance to reload.

Had the Cats won the game, Ablett would certainly have taken out the Norm Smith Medal, but it wasn't his week. It wasn't his year. And it would have been an odd sort of double, joining his father as winner of the medal for best afield in a losing grand final against Hawthorn. Perhaps that would have been the cruellest cut of all.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.