IT was 6.35pm. Saturday, July 27, 2017. Round 19.
It is a moment of Australian football history. Actually, it is more. This was when the concept of "poetry in motion" gained its perfect definition from a classic play mastered by a great.
The 30,335 at Adelaide Oval - friend, foe and the neutrals who picked the right day to go to the football - will never forget it.
Seventeen seconds are left on the match clock. St Kilda leads Port Adelaide by four points.
"I'd be putting a lot of effort into stopping Robbie Gray," said Australian Football Hall of Famer Mark Bickley from the radio commentary box in the Sir Donald Bradman Stand, almost directly under the play.
Easier said than done ...
Port Adelaide ruckman Patrick Ryder purposely approaches the throw-in - taking front position on Billy Longer - where the 50-metre arc at the northern end forms the apex with the boundary. Ryder's slap-tap pushes the ball across and away from Longer. Into the sure hands of Robbie Gray, with the sleeves on his black guernsey rolled up to give the image of a master tradesman primed to work at his craft. And the legs motor past two flat-footed St Kilda rivals, Jack Billings and Sebastian Ross, to give Gray a clear run up for the 50-metre kick that clears St Kilda's 190cm forward Tim Membrey's out-stretched arms on the goal line.
Gray moved like a thoroughbred among brumbies. He was at a different - faster - speed in mind and body to everyone else.
"Robbie could make time go slow," says former Port Adelaide captain and coach Matthew Primus, summing up how the Gray appeared on a different plane to every other player at Adelaide Oval that evening. "He could see opportunity before it was happening ... It is remarkable how that happens.
"Robbie sees the ball - he knows where his team-mates are, where the opposition is - before anyone else. He has that innate ability to change games."
To Port Adelaide senior coach Ken Hinkley, who has led Gray through the majority of his 270 AFL games, it is his favourite Robbie Gray moment.
"Or that goal after the siren against Carlton (at the Gabba in round 7, 2020)," says Hinkley.
"Maybe the five goals during the third quarter of the Showdown ...
"And that semi-final against Fremantle in Perth in 2014.
"So many favourite moments with Robbie.
"Yeah, Ryder to Gray ... that's the best."
Everyone has a favourite Robbie Gray moment. Everyone.
No-one in AFL football has more match-winning scores - goals and behinds - than Robbie Gray.
Round 7 this year in the rain at Cairns. Gray again broke St Kilda's hearts to score the winning behind in Port Adelaide's one-point triumph in the Queensland tropics.
Round 23 last year in that epic battle for top-four positions with the Western Bulldogs at the Docklands. From 35 metres, on a 45-degree angle, Gray's goal gave Port Adelaide the lead that was stoicly defended for the final five minutes of the match.
Round 4 last year. Seeking some retribution against defending AFL premier Richmond for the six-point preliminary final loss seven months earlier, Gray out-muscled Richmond defender Jayden Short for a contested mark 40 metres from goal, on the boundary in the south-eastern pocket at Adelaide Oval.
Round 7 in 2020 with the COVID pandemic forcing Port Adelaide and Carlton to play at the Gabba. With a 50-metre set shot - after taking the pass along the boundary from Sam Mayes - Gray was "ice cold" while the siren sounded.
In 12 games, Gray has by a goal (10 times) or behind (twice, each time against St Kilda) restored the lead for Port Adelaide with "clutch" scores in the last term. Only twice (both times in 2018) has the game slipped away from Port Adelaide after Gray set up the chance for victory. He has done it as a specialist forward and as an astute midfielder. He has struck fear and garnered respect from rivals, as summed up best by All-Australian defender-midfielder Rory Laird.
"It sounds wrong," says Laird, "but I am pretty happy not to have to line up against Robbie Gray again (after Saturday night's farewell Showdown at Adelaide Oval).
"He seems to always turn it on in the Showdowns," added Laird of the rival with five Showdown Medals as best-afield in the derby that captures everything that defines "finals-like" football.
"He has been an absolute master of the game. His ability to play as a small forward, as dynamic as Robbie is, makes him so dangerous to defenders.
"And for years he has been able to say, 'Righto, I'll go into the midfield and do something there'.
"Robbie can take over games from anywhere.
"As bad as it sounds, I'm pretty happy to see the back of him. He is not just one of Port Adelaide's greatest players, but a Showdown master and a great of the game as well."
Primus was at the end of his first year as an assistant coach to Mark Williams when Port Adelaide called Gray to Alberton with pick No. 55 in the 2006 AFL national draft.
"If you spoke to anyone who was at Port Adelaide in Robbie's first few years and ask them if they thought Robbie would still be playing in 2022 and produce so many games of such a high level, they would have to say, 'Something remarkable has happened'," Primus said.
"Robbie came to the club as a late draft pick. That doesn't mean all that much, but he struggled in his early days. There was the question of whether his body could handle the rigour of training and playing. It took quite a few years for Robbie to get used to that. We could see the talent. And he became an ultra-professional. He has played at a super high level for such a long time - and earned all the accolades and awards."
"Ryder to Gray" is the classic ruck to on-baller moment that is appreciated to the fullest by Primus, a ruckman who commanded the game to the point the AFL changed ruck rules to counter his dominance.
"There are very few guys who can work that way inside the 'phone box' as we call it," says Primus. "His ability to read the ball, to know what is happening around him. In that tight 'phone box' where there is lot to contend with, Robbie made things happen before others could see it.
"Robbie produced as a forward early in his career," added Primus of the teenager thrust into the Port Adelaide line-up for his AFL debut against Hawthorn at Football Park on June 3, 2007.
"He then became a dominant midfielder. And in his latter years he has become a forward who makes all defenders shiver in their boots when he was one-out, two-out, whatever."
Everyone has a favourite Robbie Gray moment.
"I was lucky to call (on radio) that game against Carlton at the Gabba in 2020," recalls Primus, who lives on the Gold Coast today. "One, he shook away his opponent to get on the end of that kick from Sam Mayes. And then his confidence to go back, knowing time was out. Pressure on. Pressure off. He is the same in his mannerisms. He just handles the situation so well. To watch him kick that goal from an unbelievable angle on the boundary is one of many memories of Robbie Gray.
"I'd watch Robbie in training and think, 'Wow, how impressive is this guy!' You marvel at some of the stuff he does in training let alone in games."
The champion footballer is well known. The man is private - and he shuns the limelight better than he outwits opponents.
"Robbie is a humble guy," says Primus. "You know players are all built differently. Some have egos. Some bigger than others. Some need to be encouraged to get the best out of them. But not in question is how Robbie had that desire to be a really good player. He just wanted to be a really, really good player. And all he wanted to do was be with his team-mates. He loves his football club. He loves being around his mates. In my time as an assistant coach and coach at Port Adelaide, he hated being asked to do any media interviews - he would avoid it like the plague. That was simply because he was focussed on his footy and wanted to be around his mates.
"He is so humble. He will ask more of your life than speak of his own. That is the sign of a great man. He did not change from the day he walked in the door at the Port Adelaide Football Club.
"Robbie and Warren Tredrea are at the top of the tree (of Port Adelaide's greatest AFL players). It is so hard to separate two superstars. For longevity, for playing at a super high level for such a long time, the way he changed games, for me the best are Tredrea and Gray. They stand out for what they did for so long."
For 16 years, Robbie Gray has been Port Adelaide. Even through the club's toughest hours from 2010-2012 and across all 16 years no-one has ever known Gray to be anything other than Port Adelaide.
As the AFL Record editor Ashley Browne says: "Robbie Gray, as Melbourne as a tram, yet never spoken about as a player who sought to return home at some stage. Speaks volumes for him as a person and player - and the outstanding culture there is at the Port Adelaide Football Club."
Everyone has a favourite Robbie Gray moment.
Brian Cunningham was admired as a majestic Port Adelaide player - so much like Gray, by being commanding in the midfield and so threatening at the goalfront where he kicked - during the 1970s and 1980s. A Port Adelaide premiership captain and the club's chief executive from the rise to the AFL until the breakthrough national league premiership in 2004, Cunningham has watched Gray as a fan.
"Staggeringly good player Robbie Gray," says Cunningham. "An amazing player. And isn't it true that so many greats are not only superb in their skills they display on the football field - they are excellent people as well. Robbie Gray is a great man.
"No-one is going to argue when you say Robbie Gray is among Port Adelaide's greatest players. He is one of those players who leaves you wondering, 'How did he do that?'"
Everyone has a favourite Robbie Gray moment.
"I still can't work out that Ryder tap to Gray and the goal that beat St Kilda," says Cunningham. "Robbie did things that you thought were impossible. But he did them."
It was 6.35pm. Saturday, July 27, 2017.
"Ryder over the back .. Robbie Gray. He is a superstar. He goes long. Has it got the legs? Yes. Robbie Gray has kicked a big goal ..."
Pure football. Pure Robbie Gray.
