Richmond to field far stronger line-up against Geelong than early-season MCG meeting
In their only meeting this year Geelong smashed Richmond on a Friday night at the MCG. But the Cats would be “naive” to pay too much attention to that result.
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Richmond will head into its preliminary final clash with Geelong not only chock-full of confidence after 10 straight wins but also with the knowledge they are very much a different side to the one that was thumped by the Cats in the two teams’ only meeting this year.
The Tigers, premiership favourites after their stunning surge to the top four and convincing qualifying final win, are set to field up to eight different faces at the MCG this week to the team that faced Geelong in the first week of June.
At that stage, not only was Damien Hardwick’s men grappling with injury but it was also still finding its mojo in defence as the club rallied from the loss of Alex Rance.
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In the round 12 meeting, the Tigers held Geelong goalless in the opening term before the Cats clicked into gear, booting 16.8 (104) to the Tigers’ 5.7 (37).
But how’s this for some important names?
Jack Riewoldt, David Astbury, Toby Nankervis, Jayden Short, Kane Lambert, Nathan Broad, Brandon Ellis and Shai Bolton.
None of that eight played in the June encounter against Chris Scott’s men.
That’s a key chunk of the Tigers’ current backline — that faced Brisbane just over a week ago — along with three-time Coleman medallist Riewoldt and premiership ruckman Nankervis.
Former Essendon and St Kilda great Brendon Goddard said Geelong wouldn’t be taking too much notice of their previous meeting against the Tigers.
“I don’t think the Cats are that naive that they’ll say ‘We’ll be taking a fair bit of confidence from that’ because they the Tigers) were a totally different team,” Goddard told Channel 7.
“And Richmond have been the best team in the competition, hands down, over the last eight weeks.”
Asked of that game against Richmond after his side’s semi-final win, Scott acknowledged his squad would face a new-look Richmond but he wasn’t completely discounting the match.
“The last time you played a team’s relevant,” Scott said.
“Tonight it was round 5 (that we last played West Coast) ... yeah they (Richmond) had a few players out (when we played them last time).
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“I think they’re playing better than they were. It’d be easy enough for them to convince people of that, but it doesn’t mean nothing.”
While the Tigers have welcomed back some big names the Cats, on the flip side, will be without supreme ball user Mitch Duncan and almost certainly Tom Hawkins when the teams meet this week.
Hawkins was vital in round 12, having the better of young Tiger Ryan Garthwaite on his way to four goals.
Geelong’s barnstorming first half of the home and away season culminated in that 67-point demolition of the Tigers, with the Cats’ yoyo-ing since their bye as they’ve followed a strict lose-win pattern in their past 12 matches.
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