Standing at the top of the goal square, watching Docker David Mundy trot in with the ball and the game in his hands, Corey Enright might have reflected that this was both what keeps you playing the game, and reason enough to give it away. ''It could have gone either way,'' the veteran Cat said.
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He was referring to Mundy's kick, but publicly at least the sentiment applies to whether the five-times All Australian will press on into a 15th season and most likely become only the third Geelong footballer to reach 300 games (behind Ian Nankervis and Sam Newman). Saturday night was Enright's 283rd game; he turns 33 on the second weekend of the finals.
''There's lots of things you've got to take into account,'' Enright said of a decision his club is leaving in his hands. ''It's hard because you're in the game - our next game's in six days, you can't really take your foot off the pedal too much and think about those things. It's just important that I try and do my best tonight.''
As always, his best was very good. Enright had 27 possessions against the Dockers and was a key cog in a Harry Taylor-led defence of which much was asked throughout the night. Enright, Taylor, Andrew Mackie, James Kelly and Jared Rivers had 116 possessions between them, a statement on how much the Dockers threw at them. The sixth back man, Tom Lonergan, kept Matthew Pavlich goalless. Nine of Taylor's career-high 19 grabs were intercept marks.
''We had a lot of winners down there tonight,'' Enright said. ''We rely on the guys up the field to put some pressure on, and I thought for most of the game our midfielders were fantastic in that regard. Fremantle are really strong in the midfield but I thought we matched them really well.''
Freo's four-goals-to-one last quarter will occupy plenty of Monday's game review, with Enright unsure whether they'd tried to hold their advantage or stopped playing the way they wanted to.
''A little bit, in that that quarter,'' he said of the creeping sense that the game was slipping away from his team. ''You know as a defender the ball's spending a lot of time down there, and we couldn't seem to get it back up our end and keep it up there. They played the game on their terms the last 15 minutes at least.
''They're a fantastic side. They're well drilled, they stick to their guns. We'll have a look at the whole game, but (with) a fair bit of emphasis on that last quarter.''
As he watched Mundy's kick sail over his left shoulder, fading to narrowly miss its target, Enright felt only relief. ''To rely on a kick to go one side of the post, it's pretty frightening really. You've done all the work.
''I'm sure they'll be sitting back and they'll be disappointed. For us it's just relief - we got the points and that's the main focus this time of year.''
