Background
Geelong entered the season after finishing 10th in 2006. Geelong was the best performing side of the home and away season, finishing 12 points clear of second-placed Port Adelaide, with an 18–4 record and a percentage of 152.76, thus winning the McClelland Trophy. Geelong had lost only one game since Round 5: by five points to Port Adelaide at Skilled Stadium in Round 21 when Dominic Cassisi goaled with 3 seconds remaining. The grand final was Geelong's first appearance in a premiership decider since losing the 1995 Grand Final. Geelong defeated the Kangaroos in their qualifying final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground by 106 points, earning them a second week bye, before they met the Collingwood Magpies in a preliminary final showdown at the MCG. Geelong won a tightly fought contest with the Magpies by 5 points in front of a crowd of 98,002, a higher attendance than the actual grand final.
Port Adelaide, having finished 12th the previous season, rose 10 places to become 2nd on the ladder in 2007, with a 15–7 record and a percentage of 113.54. Port Adelaide had hosted reigning premiers West Coast Eagles at AAMI Stadium in their qualifying final, winning by three points after trailing all night. Having also earned a second week bye, they proceeded to the third week and hosted the Kangaroos in a preliminary final at AAMI Stadium, winning by 87 points. The 2007 AFL Grand Final was Port Adelaide's first since winning the 2004 Grand Final.
This was the first Grand Final fought between two teams that missed the finals the previous year since 1997.
Read more about this topic: 2007 AFL Grand Final
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)