(Marc Williams is a BPL Citizen Journalist)

Some, mostly neutrals, will sit back and relish spouting the new doozy of a September joke about what happens when two teams who can't win premierships play off in a Grand Final?

They will highlight the wobbles that the Pies had, and in doing so, undervalue the heroics of the Saints.

Travis Cloke will be attacked for missing two more-than-gettable shots in the space of a minute at the end of the first half, which would have stretched the Pies lead beyond five goals.

Talk will turn to the issue of extra time, or the lack thereof, about money and the AFL's obsession with it.

Or let's hope it won't. What we witnessed on Saturday was drama and entertainment of the highest order.

What should be said about Saturday's epic Grand Final was that it was one of the finest ever played. A true arm wrestle, a game that turned into good old fashioned football, as both teams' strategies under the fiercest of pressure regressed into kicking the ball blindly forward at any opportunity.

There cannot be 44 heroes in any game of football, for the status of hero would then be lessened.

Lenny Hayes and Brendon Goddard took high-pressure, high-stakes football performance to a new level. Both were responsible for huge goals in the last quarter, Hayes dobbing a shot from well outside his own kicking range that defied all logic. Unsurprisingly, he seemed to get stronger as the others weakened. Universal respect and admiration is his.

Goddard not only repelled attacks but managed to race forward, and with little more than seven minutes left and the scores tied on 61 points apiece, he leaped with the adrenalin of a competitive beast that would not allow his team to be bested for the second year running. His mark will live long in the minds of all who saw it, and Goddard's name will sit aptly alongside Jesaulenko's among football immortals, names that will still be cried in a hundred years.

And the Saints had the game and the momentum; it seemed nothing could stop the will of Hayes and Goddard. Until, of course, the moment a high ball was sent into the centre square in the vicinity of Nick Maxwell. His audacious leap and mark was as breathtaking as anything we had seen pre-Goddard, and stemmed the tide that seemed to be strongly pulling toward the Saints.

Ben Johnson is an unfashionable, good ordinary player who foundhimself in the unenviable position of goalkeeper with a herd of Saints looking for a scrap to smack through the goals, anyway, anyhow. The scores were level and Barry Breen was about to be cloned, but Johnson brilliantly kept the ball in front and managed to clear the area and save the day.

It was football imperfectly, perfect. A classic. Now for round two.