The front page of Melbourne's Herald Sun yesterday said it all. 'Simply the best!'
The background was the weekend's Geelong Cats thrashing of the Sydney Swans 126 points to 59. The Cats kicked 12 goals to three in the second half and won 19.12 (126) to 9.5 (59) before a crowd of 25,970. The second half was one-sided as Geelong ramped up the pressure, harassed and tackled their opponents at every chance and used the ball with great effect.
Ablett collected 38 touches, 10 marks, 10 clearances, eight inside-50s, seven tackles and two goals.
"He's the best player in the competition," Roos said. "Not too many players have an impact like he does over four quarters."
"When you watch him play, he doesn't have a bad 15 minutes, he certainly doesn't have a bad game. Generally he's in the best three or four players on the ground."
Ablett ruined Roos' plan to go head-to-head with him, a move that surprised Cats coach Mark Thompson, and by quarter-time had 12 touches and five clearances. The reason we didn't put Kieren there early is because he's been in good form, he's been getting the ball," Roos said. "The first quarter didn't work, we tried to do different things, but at least he (O'Keefe) was able to win the ball at times and put some tackles on him."
"We haven't got anyone to play on him, as most teams haven't," Roos said. "We've tried to shut him down, tried to tag him, but that hasn't worked for us before." In typical tongue-in-cheek style, Roos said: "We actually kept him down from 44 to 38 today ... so we're pretty pleased with that. By about 2013 we might have him down to mid-20s, I reckon."
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/geelong-best-team-gary-ablett-best-player-paul-roos/story-e6frf9jf-1225864261487
There you have it, Gary Ablett jnr, according to Paul Roos is 'simply the best'.
As I pondered this, I realised that this is exactly what God wants of us, "simply the best".
And yet, God is more forgiving of failures than the media is of the star football players, and more forgiving than the fans when their team fails to make the most of their advantages, and more forgiving than coaches would be of someone with such talent as Gary Ablett jnr should be perform poorly.
The Apostle Peter speaks of this in that we are called to follow Jesus' steps (1 Peter 2 verses 21-23) and living lives worthy of His calling to holiness (1 Peter 1 verses 14-16) and yet we fall short of God's Glory (Romans 3 verses 23-24) with our sinning.
His forgiveness is 'out of this world', 'it's simply the best'.