SATURDAY'S grand final was a ripper. Played in perfect conditions, before the first six-figure crowd for more than 20 years, which made a noise befitting the occasion, sadly not always the case on this day of days.

There was an opening quarter as good as any we've seen. Tough, courageous and skillful football in equal measures. Drama via Hawthorn's mounting injury toll and Geelong's rare case of the kicking yips.

Ultimately, it produced for the victor a genuine fairytale. For the loser, the first team in league history to win as many games before dropping the biggest of them all, a sense of despair more crushing than usual. And not just a little deja vu.

The most obvious comparison Saturday provoked was with the grand final of 10 years previously. In 1998, North Melbourne had finished on top, winning its final 11 games before falling at the final hurdle.

Like Geelong this time, it was a defeat as much of its own making, the hot favourite dominant at half-time, but a wasteful 6.15 ensuring an Adelaide looking a little forlorn remained at least a scoreboard chance. One the Crows duly seized.

The best team on the day won the premiership. The best team of the season didn't. Such was the case in 2008, a point even jubilant Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson was happy to concede after his team grabbed a premiership — one, perhaps even a couple of seasons ahead of schedule.

And that's something to make this happy team from Hawthorn even happier still. There's still plenty of scope for improvement for the Hawks.

Hawthorn had the third-youngest playing list in the AFL this year, only the Carlton and West Coast squads any rawer in terms of years. In terms of games played, only the Blues were any less experienced. With the exception of Shane Crawford, every member of this premiership side has at least several more years left in him.

At only 21, "Buddy" Franklin is already a Coleman medallist, century goalkicker and arguably the game's biggest superstar. His key forward partner, Jarryd Roughead, is 21 also.

The more peripheral members of the Hawk line-up stood tall on Saturday and continue to improve rapidly. Midfielder Xavier Ellis was one of the best handful on the ground, ditto Clinton Young, even in just a half, and defender Stephen Gilham was very solid.

There's plenty more in the ranks to keep selection pressure on next season, too — Tom Murphy, Ben McGlynn, Travis Tuck, Jarryd Morton, Josh Kennedy, Beau Muston, Beau Dowler and Mitch Thorp to name but a few.

An era beckons. But Hawthorn only needs to look to the power it conquered on Saturday to see just how cruel can be the business of pursuing continued success, and how tenuous is history's judgement of the truly great teams.

Which in my view, despite what happened on Saturday, Geelong still is. It's far too pat and churlish an argument to say the best sides can be measured only in terms of premierships. Why bother having a season at all if all assessments are to be made on the basis of one game?

To have racked up 42 wins from 44 games in this era was an incredible achievement by the Cats. They did so with a level of dominance we've seldom seen, playing a brand of football truly breathtaking to watch.

Geelong has helped drag more people through the gates these past couple of years, emerging at exactly the right time. A time when the dour, risk-free style that had become flavour of the month had enough people seriously questioning whether Australian football was still capable of providing anything like the entertainment it once had.

As Clarkson graciously noted, Geelong's status shouldn't slip on the basis of one afternoon of football, albeit a significant one.

It's not even as though the Cats made a complete meal of it on Saturday. They won arguably the two most important key performance indicators handsomely, the clearances 41-27, and the inside 50s 62-43.

Hawthorn's "cluster" has all season prevented sides penetrating their defensive 50.

Geelong found its way through an average 15 times a quarter, and it's rare indeed that 60-plus inside 50s don't win you the game.

That they didn't on Saturday comes back to that horrible score of 11.23. Yes, 11 of those behinds were rushed, but there were some appalling misses, Brad Ottens' and Cameron Mooney's second-quarter clangers in particular are likely to haunt them for some time.

Not that 20 of their teammates, their coach Mark Thompson, an entire club and fan base, for that matter, won't be haunted equally. This truly was the flag that got away. Not through any major flaw in style, structure or preparation, but simply through not converting its many chances on one afternoon.

Can Geelong improve any further on a set-up good enough to have won it 23 of 24 games in 2008 before Saturday?

A classy key forward wouldn't hurt, but isn't Tom Hawkins one in the making? Perhaps the Cats could pursue a plan B game plan when in trouble. Except for the fact that until Saturday (but for the round-nine loss to Collingwood) they haven't been in trouble. And that's the thing. A beaten grand finalist can generally pinpoint areas it needs to work on to go that step further. Geelong can do little more than nit-pick. Mooney, Ottens and co could spend all pre-season practising their goalkicking, but still miss again on a given afternoon.

It's going to be a frustrating next 12 months for the Cats. Not just the pre-season leading into next year, but the 22 rounds and finals that will precede their chance for redemption. And that's as big a psychological challenge as physical.

History shows that North Melbourne was able to pick itself up after that similarly shattering grand final loss in 1998 and rebound with a premiership the following year. Geelong can't do a lot more now than hope that, like the Roos a decade ago, they have a happy postscript.