Geelong midfield coach Steven King key to stunning victory over Port Adelaide
West Coast’s coaching search is down to four, and one of them just made an almighty impression by orchestrating a midfield masterclass for Geelong in their finals win.
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Steven King’s fingerprints were all over Geelong’s midfield masterclass on Thursday night.
The man who is down to the final four in West Coast’s coaching search might have enjoyed one of the best nights of his coaching career as the Cats booked another preliminary final demolishing Port Adelaide.
All year, the knock on the Cats has been their midfield stocks, and when they lost Tom Stewart to ongoing hamstring concerns on Thursday morning, toppling Port on the road looked even tougher. But what King, as midfield coach, was able to help orchestrate as Patrick Dangerfield and his crew ran riot will clearly be another strong vote of confidence in King’s ballot box in West Coast’s coach search.
In the centre square, the Cats belted the Power’s superstar combination out of the middle despite having 26 less hit-outs than Port Adelaide.
Regardless, what happened at ground level and in the midfield mechanics around the ground saw the Cats win the clearance battle by four in the 84-point rout.
Digging deeper, Geelong scored a whopping 11.9 (75) from stoppages to Port’s 3.3 (21), according to Champion Data.
For pure talent, Port clearly had the edge in the middle, but the Cats hammered them in the midfield contest even without Stewart.
While all the focus immediately turned to Ken Hinkley’s future as Port’s senior coach and the Cats being up to their eyeballs in yet another premiership tilt, the subplot for King is significant as the Eagles take their time finding an Adam Simpson replacement.
There is ongoing scuttlebutt the Eagles will ask the question of Hinkley if Port bow out this week and will have another crack at Sydney’s Dean Cox.
But what King helped Geelong produce on Thursday night is not just a big tick, could it be what helps get the former Geelong and St Kilda ruckman over the line for the top job at the Eagles?
Despite the low public profile, King was All-Australian ruckman age 21, Geelong captain at 24, dual premiership player with the Cats, and assistant coach for the past 13 years across four clubs, including St Kilda, Western Bulldogs and interim senior coach at Gold Coast.
Expert analyst David King lauded Geelong’s midfield performance on Thursday night.
“We have to pay respect to what Geelong was able to do,” King said on SEN.
“(Max) Holmes and (Patrick) Dangerfield in the middle just ripped the heart out of (Zak) Butters, (Connor) Rozee, (Jason) Horne-Francis, (Willem) Drew and (Ollie) Wines, who should have held sway.
“Going into this game the biggest weapon, the biggest threat, the biggest weapon that Port Adelaide had was the midfield.
“They (Port) had six scores to (Geelong’s) 20 from clearance in favour of the Cats … if you take away the West Coast games it is their best scoring from clearance game for five years in a final against Rozee and Horne-Francis with two guys (Dangerfield and Holmes).”
Officially, West Coast is still assessing its leading coaching candidates, including Andrew McQualter (Melbourne), Brendon Lade (Western Bulldogs), King and Brett Montgomery (GWS Giants).
Lade will saddle up with the Bulldogs in the elimination final against Hawthorn on Friday night, while McQualter, who ran second to Adem Yze at Richmond, has strong connections with Eagles’ recruiting targets Liam Baker and Jack Graham.
The Herald Sun revealed on Wednesday the Eagles were trying to poach Brisbane football manager Danny Daly in a senior football director role. Daly would provide the experienced hand to help guide a new young senior coach, if the Eagles can poach him out of Brisbane.
When some of the leading candidates such as Cox, Jaymie Graham, Josh Carr and Ashley Hansen pulled out of the race, privately some thought West Coast was not left with a Melbourne Cup field of coaching candidates.
The question was even asked whether the club should have kept Simpson, despite some players’ text message criticism which was revealed publicly.
But Don Pyke would have been watching the Cats on Thursday night, and must have been happy with what he saw from a man vying to become the next king of West Coast.
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