Literally and figuratively,Selwood’s head was always in the game. “I was all in,” he said on Wednesday. In his time,so were Geelong. Of Selwood’s 355 games,only one was a dead rubber,without prospect of making finals or proceeding further in them. In his career,he only once endured three successive losses.
Only once did his Cats not play finals. Selwood carried them and they buoyed him,for 16 superlative years.
Football folk sometimes talk of the deleterious effect when playing finals one season shortens the off-season before the next. All Selwood’s off-seasons were short,and always,he and the Cats backed up.
Selwood’s football reconciled contradictions,desperation and composure. So did his personality. The word you were most likely to hear about Selwood was “care”. Care for teammates,care for the club,care for the least person in it.
In grand final week,the stories of his warmth and empathy were legion. At the president’s dinner preceding his 350th game in July,Selwood arranged for jumper presentations to the family of Vic Fuller,the Cats’ VFL team manager who died suddenly earlier this year,and for the club chef.
Before playing Fremantle earlier this year,he had a coffee with Jordan Clark,the former Cat and Selwood mentee. It didn’t matter that they would soon be midfield opponents;until they buckled up for battle,they were people. It won’t surprise anyone that Selwood urged restraint on teammates on Saturday night,so that they would remember their premiership. He drove home.
Murphy’s armour analogy suggests footballers have to hide their true selves. But which was Selwood’s true self? You couldn’t fake his way of playing football and it would have been impossible to live his other life as a lie. In him,they were uniquely synthesised.
Coach Chris Scott said he couldn’t deconstruct it,but only bear witness to its every minute truth. The cloak was on,the cloak was off. This made him in the estimation of Scott “the best player I’ve ever seen”. It also made him “irreplaceable” as a leader.
Selwood somehow never lost sense of the privilege of his gift and opportunity. He battled knee injuries as a teenager and saw two older brothers spirited away to opposite extremities of the league to play,yet here he was at 18,playing for the team he loved,and as it happened,on the threshold of an unprecedented era.
His third game was at breathlessly short notice. Nathan Ablett withdrew minutes before the bounce,and Selwood was summoned from the grandstand. He had just gulped down a Mars Bar. His game was worth another,and 350 more after that. “I’ve been waiting a long time,” he said after that game. “I don’t know how long it’s going to last,so I’m going to enjoy every game.”
Not only did he play each as it was his last,he played them all as if for premierships.