This blockbuster started auspiciously enough: Dane Swan goalling after a minute at one end, then Gary Ablett replying a short time later at the other, the contest's two premier midfielders trading blows in an early flurry that had the crowd on its feet, feeding the anticipation that this was going to be a game for the ages.

But it was to prove an illusion: that was the end of the goalscoring for the quarter. In fact, that was the end of the highlights for quite some time. Both teams threw numbers behind the ball and that meant the play was generally conducted between the two 50-metre arcs, bouncing back and forward like a pinball machine.

This blockbuster seemed destined to go the way of so many blockbusters before it: fascinating in parts as a tight slog of a contest but very light on for highlights, spectacular individual pieces of play and free scoring.

Having gone into quarter time with a goal apiece, the scoring in the second quarter was almost as threadbare, Geelong sneaking ahead with goals to Johnson, Mooney and Hawkins. With two minutes to go of the second half, the Cats led by 17 points and the Collingwood challenge - such as it was after two measly goals in an hour of football - looked doomed.

But then up popped Collingwood's Man with the Tattooed Sleeve #2, Dayne Beams, and he snapped two goals in no time - the second coming while the siren sounded, mid-flight - and suddenly the game was alight.

The crowd of 88,115, the biggest home-and-away crowd Geelong had ever played in front of, were now out of their seats and roaring. This is what they'd come to see.

Still on a high, the Pies booted the first two of the third term - the first to Beams, who was giving Josh Hunt the run-around - to open up a 10-point lead, and the shift in momentum was clear. They'd kicked four goals in maybe eight minutes of play to transform the game.

Mention at this point has to be made of Channel Seven's coverage. Normally the network does a great job with its Friday night coverage but this was one effort - as Dennis Cometti once said of a lopsided Eddie McGuire commentary performance at Football Park one night - that they'd like to have again.

They stayed with Beams goal on the half-time siren for a nano-second before going to an ad break. No replay, no explanation from the commentators that a goal can still stand if it sails through after the siren, no sense of theatre at the Pies' comeback. Instead, we got a Bendigo Bank ad, and a great sense of anti-climax. Clearly, because there'd been such a paucity of goals in the first half, the man in the OB van was feeling the pressure to cram those ads in whenever he got half a chance. The viewer experience suffered as a result.

Then when Shane O'Bree kicked the second of those Collingwood goals to put the Pies 10 points ahead, there was no replay of the botched Geelong kick-in after a point, just a brief shot of a celebrating O'Bree and bang, off to another ad. Very shabby indeed.

It was a shame for all the Collingwood supporters sitting at home because that was the high point of the night for them, and they didn't get a chance to savour it.

For it was also the cue for Geelong to regroup, start playing like the team that had won 69 of its previous 78 matches, the magnificent outfit that has taken pretty much all before it. The Cats somehow snapped themselves from their torpor, as Varcoe, Stokes, Mooney, Podsiadly and then Mooney again goalled. The Cats' 10-point deficit had been turned into a 22-point lead at the final break.

When the siren sounded for three-quarter time, the camera panned to Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse standing out on the ground, hands on hips, mouth pinched, glaring daggers at someone in the distance. Was he about to give the umps a bake? Was he going to exchange words with a Geelong player, as he did with Steven Milne five weeks ago? Who was he going to go off at?

Stupid questions. Because without a word of explanation from the commentary team about what had drawn Mick's ire, off we went to another series of ads, again leaving the viewer feeling robbed. (It transpired later that Chris Dawes was the player who copped the Malthouse hairdryer treatment.)

Collingwood ended up being beaten by six goals, and did not manage a goal after O'Bree's major six minutes into the third term. That's 53 minutes without a six-pointer.

What the match revealed is that the Pies are still not up to the level of Geelong and (with Riewoldt fit) St Kilda. They're a good honest side that simply don't have enough scoring options when the heat's on against a quality opponent. Much had been made during the week about the spread of goalkickers at Pieland this season; but last night, their tally of six goals was provided by just three players - Beams, O'Bree and Swan.

A few observations, first for Geelong: they won without any meaningful contribution from Gary Ablett, Steve Johnson or Cameron Ling - or Harry Taylor and Josh Hunt for that matter; Tom Hawkins played with confidence in the ruck and around the ground; Mathew Stokes was excellent at ground level in the forward line; Jimmy Bartel and Joel Selwood stood up when things were looking dicey in the third quarter; 'The Pod', James Podsiadly again enhanced his reputation as the second tall up forward; and Matthew Scarlett, Darren Milburn, Corey Enright and Andrew Mackie held the backline together while Taylor and Hunt took the night off.

For the Pies, Chris Dawes and Leon Davis were unsighted and, in Medhurst's absence, that meant goals were always going to be hard to come by; Dane Swan, Sharrod Wellingham, Luke Ball and Beams were very good for most of the night; while Travis Cloke had a great first half before fading. But too many of their players who'd been brilliant in the previous month just found the step up in class too hard to handle.

And my final observation is for Channel Seven: the next time you decide to do a live broadcast, do it properly.