Michael Gardiner

A wet evening in Melbourne led up to tonight's Preliminary Final at the MCG with a spot in the Grand Final on the line. A respectable crowd of 77,677 rolled into the MCG. Much more than the 30,000 currently able to fit into the Cats home at Kardinia Park.  While the travel down the M1 to Melbourne might be a slight inconvenience to Geelong club and its fans, the interstate trip from Brisbane definitely makes them the away team. The Lions brought back Joe Daniher (returning after missing last week for the birth of his child), and Oscar McInerney into the team after missing due to concussion previously. Darcy Fort and Tom Fullarton were omitted. 

The first quarter was an "arm wrestle". The first 20 minutes saw the traditional feeling out period with one goal to each team, Dangerfield in the first minute and McCarthy in the eleventh minute. The Cats kicked the next two goal's through Stengle and Dangerfield, Hawkins almost added another but his set shot went just right of the post.  Ah Chee broke the run of play when he kicked the Lions second but the lead again extended out to 14 points when Holmes kicked Geelong's fourth just before the quarter time siren. 

by Lisa Albergo reporting for AFANA from Chicago

Just ahead of the Round 18 match against Richmond, Eagle ruckman Dean Cox announced that 2014 would be his final season. Cox, 33, admitted that it takes him two or three days to recover after games and that he felt it was time to retire. He also said the current form of ruck partners Nic Nainatui, Scott Lycett and Callum Sinclair had made the decision easier. While he admitted it would have been nice to be the first Eagle to reach 300 games he said he had never planned on hanging around just to reach a certain number of games. Cox is planning on moving into a coaching role and has spent much of this season working with his fellow ruckmen in a coaching capacity.

Collingwood's Tarkyn Lockyer and Paul Medhurst have announced their retirements after languishing in the VFL for most of the 2010 season.

SYDNEY
Daniel Bradshaw, knee, 1 week
Lewis Roberts-Thomson, hamstring, 1 week
Craig Bolton, achilles, 2-3 weeks
Kristin Thornton, hamstring, 2-3 weeks
Jake Orreal, back, season
Mark Seaby, ankle, season

Over the last few seasons St Kilda has been a team that you could bank on to win just about every game they played. This season, with the loss of their key goal kicker Nick Riewoldt, they have been shaky, losing three out of eight games. The West Coast Eagles have not fared much better but they were coming off two wins in a row and playing at their home ground in front of 38,000 faithful fans. The bookmakers had the game evenly balanced and there was an air of belief in Perth that the Eagles could knock the Saints down a peg or two.