Even Geelong's gracious losing coach Chris Scott had to admit Lance Franklin slotting his 1000th career goal was good for the AFL.
The Cats were on the end of a 30-point defeat on a night the Sydney superstar joined an illustrious club as the sixth VFL/AFL player to reach the milestone.
No coach ever likes losing but Scott could appreciate the significance of being involved in such extraordinary scenes at the SCG on Friday night.
"The night always had the potential to be Buddy's night and Australian football in Sydney as well," Scott said.
"We've got nothing but good things to say about the great man.
"I'm a huge advocate for footy north of the Murray and I think if the takeaway from this night is that we're really disappointed and had to suck it up a little bit while Sydney celebrated, we can live with that.
"It was history-making, wasn't it?
"I don't want to give the impression we came to the game thinking, 'aren't we lucky to be here for 'Buddy' to kick his 1000th'.
"But I think we'll look back and say it was a moment in history that was well worth celebrating."
At the other end from Franklin, star Geelong forward Jeremy Cameron battled manfully after being involved in a heavy collision against Essendon last week and was in some doubt to take on the Swans.
Scott was happy with Cameron came up after being taken to hospital as a precaution following the game against the Bombers.
"It was a cork to his quad as well as the hip pointer that was holding him up.
"It wasn't as serious as it looked going off the vision.
"He actually came up pretty well, even after a six-day break."
Last year's beaten preliminary finalists will go into next Saturday night's game against resurgent Collingwood with a 1-1 record.
I wasn't carried away last week and I won't get too flat this week, we're aiming to be a consistent team," Scott said.
"We didn't play well but our midfield got soundly beaten and we got the ball forward more than the opposition.
"Our game in the contest was superb last week and poor tonight."
