I've thought about it for the last 15 hours and come up with 3 possible explanations.

1: The hype, the granduer of unfurling the flag, and the pressure to succeed in all aspects of the game left the Cats with a cloud of high expectation over their heads, which may have got to them in the end.
(Although they've been in more high pressure situations and thrived... thrived by about 119 points)

2: They viewed this game as a practice match, thinking they'd win by just showing up (like everyone else thought they would), and took it a little easy, only putting on the after burners when they needed keep the points margin up.

3: Geelongs reputation for losing to the worst team on the ladder, coupled with the anomoly of premiership teams losing on the day they unfurl the flag, led to a double whammy of bad cosmic energy, combined with poor umpiring and some dodgy free kicks.

But the day wasn't all bad, Tom Hawkins and his 5 goal haul (especially the 2 from 1 metre out) Scarlo and Milburn had great games... But my favourite thing of all: Mark Blake's dominance in the ruck, and yet another goal for the big fella... he's already beaten his season best from last year...

final point: what's the go with Mooney?

go cat's,

Shannon