Geelong’s running men led by Bailey Smith hold the key to filling void of Patrick Dangerfield as Cats defence back to its best
Geelong has won just 42 per cent of games without Patrick Dangerfield in the past two years. But in 2025, the Cats’ running machines led by Bailey Smith will be central to success without him.
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When Patrick Dangerfield went down early in the second term with yet another hamstring blow – one of four for both sides in a brutal opening half – there was a collective sigh from the Geelong faithful.
The 35-year-old had been in the conversation for a record-equalling ninth all-Australian blazer after a defining switch into attack, where he almost single-handedly won two critical matches against Adelaide and Collingwood, and ranked third in the competition for inside 50 contested possessions.
Hindsight is 20-20, but it seemed a matter of when, not if, the ageing superstar would succumb to a hamstring injury – as he did twice in 2024 and once in 2023.
Clearly it had been playing on the mind of Chris Scott and Geelong’s coaching staff as well.
“We were sort of thinking through Dangerfield in the mid-season period, so likely what it means for us is he will just miss a week or two more than we had planned through this period leading up to our bye,” Scott said post-match.
Dangerfield and Jack Bowes will go in for scans on Monday and the Cats will be sweating on the results of their skipper in particular, but Scott said after the win that Jack Bowes’ blow was more severe.
Having missed 14 games over the past two seasons with hamstring injuries, the Cats are sure to be cautious with Dangerfield as they look to get him cherry ripe for the back-end of the season – where their fixture is much more favourable – and another finals tilt.
However, the Cats have struggled without him over the past two seasons, winning just six of those 14 matches (42.9 per cent), and the Western Bulldogs, Gold Coast and Brisbane await them before their bye in round 16.
The main difference this year is the role, with Dangerfield’s absence in the midfield in 2023 and 2024 exposing a weakened midfield.
Their big-name signing Bailey Smith has helped bolster this area, and as the Cats showed on Saturday, their running game holds the key to replacing Dangerfield – which Smith is central to.
After Dangerfield went down, the Cats blew Port Adelaide off the park with 14 goals to three for the remainder of the match, with spearhead Jeremy Cameron putting through half of those majors after an injury scare of his own.
Yes, the Power were down to two on the bench with Lachie Jones – key to stopping Cameron to that point – among those sidelined.
But there were shades of Geelong’s upset qualifying final at the same venue last year where Max Holmes and the Cats’ mosquito fleet of forwards put the Power to the sword from clearance and in transition.
Geelong scored 32 points from clearance in the second half to Port Adelaide’s zero on Saturday evening and in the premiership quarter on Saturday, the Cats’ running machines were everywhere.
Ollie Dempsey had 11 disposals, six score involvements 354 metres gained and could have had four goals instead of 1.3 had he kicked straight.
Linkman Gryan Miers hit the target with all 11 of his third-quarter disposals, Brad Close kicked a goal and set up another, while Smith collected eight possessions, four score involvements and a goal assist.
A statline of 30 disposals, 10 score involvements, nine inside 50s, seven clearances and 700 metres gained is commonplace for Smith, but this time it came with attention from Miles Bergman in the first half – who quelled Adelaide captain Jordan Dawson last week – and Willem Drew.
But those tags had no effect on his impact as he ran them off their feet.
The blistering midfielder won nine disposals, five contested possessions in 34 minutes with Bergman on him, and tallied another 16 disposals 11 uncontested possessions and five clearances with Drew by his side.
Smith showcased his staggering running ability midway through the second quarter, where he bobbed up in the right back pocket for a kick in, took a bounce and kicked it long to the wing.
A minute and a half later, he was on the diagonally opposite side of the ground receiving a handball from Dempsey, where he hit Close on the edge of the boundary line with precision on his non-preferred left boot.
“He is a power runner, that is for sure,” Scott said.
“Our team in general, hopefully it doesn’t sound like us blowing our own trumpet, but we have transitioned into a team that can really run, and Bailey is a part of that.
“I don’t think anyone is ‘untaggable,’ but he certainly is a handful because he just keeps going and going.”
Cameron was the beneficiary of this late in the game as he came to the party with five last quarter goals, most of those in transition after running his own opponent ragged.
Add the running gifts of former sprinter Max Holmes, former steeplechaser Mark Blicavs and the ever-hardworking Shaun Mannagh, and it a midfield and forward half mix that opposition sides will struggle to keep up with.
Geelong’s relentless run makes the Cats such a damaging offensive threat, and if they continue to bring this over the next month, it won’t matter if they are kicking Dangerfield, the out of sorts Ollie Henry or Jay Polkinghorne – an uncapped 190cm marking forward who leads Geelong VFL’s goalkicking.
Cameron had been solid by his own lofty standards and now sits second in the Coleman Medal with 27 goals, and he should get much more delivery while Dangerfield is sidelined.
He was targeted 10 times inside 50 by the Cats after Dangerfield went down — he had been targeted 32 times in the first nine rounds.
DEFENSIVE LIFT
At the other end, the Cats strangled them.
Geelong had sorely missed Jack Henry over past five weeks, not just for his one-on-one match-ups, but also the stability he offers the rest of the defence.
From rounds five to nine, the Cats were the second easiest team in the competition to score against off turnover. They conceded five goals from their defensive 50 against each of GWS, Collingwood, Carlton and Adelaide — the AFL average goals conceded in a game from this area is two.
On Saturday evening, the Power managed just five goals in total from 43 entries.
A mark of his impact, five of Henry’s seven possessions were intercept marks.
Mitch Georgiades has been one of the best key forwards of the competition this season, and he was kept to 14 touches and 1.3 – that final goal coming at the 24th minute mark of the last term.
Fellow key forwards Jeremy Finlayson and Ollie Lord had 11 disposals and one behind between them for the entire match.
They still have a five-time all-Australian to add to their defence in Tom Stewart once he overcomes his troublesome knee, but Mark O’Conor filled the void in perhaps his career-best Cat.
Not renowned for his ball-winning or tidy disposal, O’Connor had a career high 28 disposals – just one was adjudged ineffective – and also notched career-highs for uncontested possessions (20), metres gained (801m) and intercept possessions (10).
The Cats’ younger Irishman Oisin Mullin, another Cat blessed with run, produced a tagging job to remember.
After Collingwood superstar Nick Daicos got the better of him at times a fortnight ago, Mullin restricted the electric Zak Butters to 132 metres gained – his lowest tally in a non-injury affected game since round six, 2022.
“I thought he really stuck to his role with great persistence and perseverance,” Scott said.
“He was playing on a pretty handy player, you talk about those ‘untaggable’ guys and he might be up there with the Nick Daicos types. We will have to take our time to assess how it went.
“We went into the game looking at Rozee and Butters, thinking if we can limit them a bit that would be a good result, because you just can’t stop them completely.
“My sense is that Oisin did a good job, and he certainly did a good job against Daicos a few weeks ago.”
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