Richmond are into an AFL preliminary final - a drought-breaking triumph that has surprised coach Damien Hardwick.
The Tigers blitzed Geelong in the last quarter at the MCG, winning their qualifying final by 51 points.
Friday night became party time at Punt Rd for the long-suffering Tigers faithful with the 13.13 (91) to 5.10 (40) win.
They are now just one win from their first grand final since 1982.
Their barren Septembers have lasted nearly as long as the war on terror - Richmond's last finals win was four days after 9/11.
It also snaps their 13-game losing streak against Geelong.
After losing three-straight elimination finals under Hardwick, the Tigers plummeted out of the top eight last year.
Hardwick knew they would be better this season, but perhaps not quite this good.
"I was confident at the end of last year, knowing that we were bringing in some players and that we would bounce back to finals," he said.
"Did I think we would be in a preliminary final? At a guess, probably no."
Hardwick also thanked the board for keeping faith with him.
"They could have quite easily tipped me out, but that's the great thing about our footy club - we believe in our people," he said.
Richmond fans dominated the blockbuster crowd of 95,028 and the roar at the final siren reflected the importance of the win.
"It was incredible hearing them at the end ... probably 60-odd thousand were ours," Hardwick said.
"It's just so loud and passionate."
It was trench warfare for most of the opening three quarters, with relentless pressure meaning plenty of mistakes.
Richmond were on top early, but they could not capitalise and at one stage had kicked a wasteful 3.10.
Geelong drew level during the third term, but crucially never hit the front.
A week after re-signing with Richmond on a monster seven-year deal, Brownlow Medal favourite Dustin Martin showed he is worth every cent.
He helped set up three goals either side of three-quarter time that busted the game apart, with Richmond kicking seven goals to one in the last term.
"Sometimes when you have a big percentage of your players not playing well and you're still in the game at three-quarter time, things can change really quickly," Cats coach Chris Scott said.
"Unfortunately, it just changed for them - the dam wall burst."
Since winning the 2011 premiership, the Cats have only won two of nine finals.
They now are into the tougher side of the finals draw, with Adelaide and Sydney looming, and face a sudden-death semi-final next week.
Geelong also lost Cam Guthrie - who at times restricted Martin - and Jake Kolodjashnij to calf muscle injuries.
"You can make an argument that Adelaide and Sydney have been the best two teams for a lot of the year,"' Scott said.
"But we worked really hard to get ourselves into this position ... we have no choice but to be optimistic about what we can do."
Geelong will play the winner of Saturday's Sydney v Essendon elimination final.
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