During this week’s AFL Draft Combine young aspiring players will be measured for their aerobic capacity, acceleration and agility. There is, however, no test to discover if a kid has within him the one attribute that defines the truly great footballer: the ability to step up in a grand final.

Midway through the second quarter last Saturday things started to go wrong for Geelong and it looked to be in serious trouble.

A questionable free kick and resultant goal to Collingwood put the Cats three goals behind. Then their best forward Posiasdly crashed to earth ruining his shoulder.

But then Joel Selwood (nursing a broken knuckle from the Qualifying Final) scrambles a goal and three minutes from half-time commentator Anthony Hudson watches Jimmy Bartel take a set shot from the boundary: “There are big moments in grand finals and the ball’s in the hands of the right man”, as Bartel snaps truly to reduce the deficit to three points.

Selwood and Bartel achieved what is rare in football: producing their best performances for the biggest game of all.

They surpassed their kick and goal averages but also had an impact when the team needed them the most. They didn’t lay down and die.

Geelong also benefitted from the grand final ransformations of two goalkickers. Three weeks earlier the talented but enigmatic (how many times do we hear that?) Travis Varcoe strolled into a near-deserted fifty metre zone, took laconic aim, and missed.

Ten seconds into the Grand Final, the same scenario presented itself except he ended it with a goal.

During the game Tom Hawkins completed his remarkable metamorphosis from Ken Doll to Superman.

He was like the great Vaslav Nijinsky finding his calling: “I decided to devote myself to dancing even more. Everyone started to talk about me. I started to dance …Like God!”

Of course, Collingwood’s Scott Pendlebury and Steele Sidebottom also stepped up but something about their teammates, most of who are premiership players, wasn’t right.

As Malthouse admitted: “I know at the end of the game that there were six or seven of them who knew they just didn’t fire a shot. Not because they didn’t want to – football’s not played like that – but for one reason or another they just couldn’t get into the game, they looked out of sorts.”

I think Geelong wanted it more. The match statistics for both teams were identical in all areas but one: contested possessions.

Last Saturday, the sight of a single Geelong player surrounded by Magpies was reminiscent of last year’s Preliminary Final. This time around, however, the Cat’s were prepared to die before coughing up possession.

There is a poignant photo of the Brownlow medallist Dane Swan looking distraught on the ground as he watches his supposed tagger Cameron Ling launch the ball from the centre square. More significantly, there are five players in the contest and Ling is the only Geelong one.

What is the psychology of these great grand final performers? Players like Dermott Brereton and Robert DiPierdomenico who played with broken ribs and punctured organs.

What is it about them? There’s an aggression towards the ball – and the man. After kicking the match-sealing goal Bartel sought out Chris Dawes for an elbow. The fact that Dawes was clearly shocked highlighted the difference in their mentalities.

With Brereton you could tell the pressure to perform fortified his mind and body. He thrived on it. Perhaps other great big-gamers simply learn to subjugate the fear and normalise better than lesser performers.

The post match interviews don’t give us a clue. Stupidly, we expect them to be poets and charismatic actors able to convey the magic and secrets of their landmark performances. But they speak jargon and talk in cliches – parroting the speeches of their coaches.

Modestly downplaying their own performances they talk instead of “the boys”.

Norman Mailer, writing about the Apollo 11 mission, was surprised at how ordinary its astronauts – NASA’s elite of the elite – looked and sounded.

When asked what they would do if their rickety-looking module failed to lift off the lunar surface, Neil Armstrong replied: “At the present time we’re left without recourse should that occur” – ie that they would die right there on the moon.

Asking most footballers to convey the experience of playing in a grand final gets similar results.

It’s difficult now to realise that Geelong were once thought of as perennial grand final losers. Between 1989 and 1995 they played in four and lost all of them.

Bill Brownless played in all four.

Despite his natural jocularity and genuine joy over the achievements of this great Geelong side there is something of the sad clown about Billy. Eating away at him is the reality that, despite his numerous past opportunities, he will never be referred to as a premiership player.

In contrast, two less deserved successors had dream grand final debuts. Nathan Ablett was dreaming of an ordinary existence as a plumber when he kicked three goals and picked up a medallion in the 2007 decider.

Two years later it was Tom Hawkins, “the loveable lump” who had done next-to-nothing in his forty-odd games, flashing a winning Last Week in September smile.

It wasn’t the fault of Brownless or his team. Like Collingwood in the ’70′s and ’80′s, Geelong kept coming up against more talented teams.

Some players who put in a remarkable performance will never be considered great (eg Ted Hopkins) and there are plenty of premiership players who were passengers on the day.

Most footballers don’t get the opportunity to prove their worth in a grand final and sometimes a sublime performance by the greatest of them all can’t win you one.

Gary Ablett’s nine goals in 1989 wasn’t enough in the end to defeat a team that contained men prepared to play while they literally bled inside.