Cats star kicks record bag as Kangaroos’ season hits rotten new low

North Melbourne’s horror season has gotten worse after Geelong responded in emphatic fashion to last week’s upset loss.

The Cats thumped the Roos on Sunday.

Geelong has thumped North Melbourne 17.19 (121) to 9.7 (61) to heap more pain on the Kangaroos, who now sit at the bottom of the AFL ladder after six rounds.

The Cats were merciless in response to last week’s loss to Hawthorn, with key forward pair Jeremy Cameron and Tom Hawkins dominating the North Melbourne defence.

Geelong will next host an in-form Fremantle side at GMHBA Stadium, while North Melbourne will face Carlton at Marvel Stadium.

Stream every match of every round of the 2022 Toyota AFL Premiership Season Live & Ad-Break Free In-Play on Kayo. New to Kayo? Try 14-Days Free Now >

Geelong looked sharp early, with Jeremy Cameron kicking the side’s first goal of the afternoon after a brilliant pass from Tom Hawkins. The pair finished the day with 11 goals between them.

Was never in doubt for Jeremy Cameron here.

📺 Watch #AFLNorthCats LIVE on ch. 504
or stream on @kayosports: https://t.co/Thx9GLY6gR
✍️ BLOG: https://t.co/9mZnWHW2zL
🔢 MATCH CENTRE: https://t.co/gHB7q6PMERpic.twitter.com/kaXyfISROE

— Fox Footy (@FOXFOOTY) April 24, 2022

Roos’ rotten season gets worse

It’s early in the rebuild, but at what point can North Melbourne fans be forgiven for expressing dismay at how their side is performing?

That’s back-to-back losses of at least 60 points and follows a triple-digit loss to the Lions in round three.

Yes, they got over the top of what was effectively a WAFL side in the Eagles and pushed Sydney to the death, but ultimately it has been a sordid start to the year.

You would be flat as a Roos fan that despite a team with so much youth the most exciting performance from a kid came from Cat Ollie Dempsey. Six games so far this year, a trio of losses by 60, 68 and 108 points amid a real crack against Sydney and soft kill of battered West Coast

— Jon Ralph (@RalphyHeraldSun) April 24, 2022

They were absolutely smashed on turnover and butchered chances of their own going inside 50 before kicking a few goals in junk time.

David Noble looked exasperated in the coaches box whenever cameras cut to him and surely many of his players feel the same way.

Geelong was dominant on counterattack and are clearly a class above the Roos at the very least, but there has to be more on show from this side.

Cameron does it all himself — again

Stopping Jeremy Cameron was always going to be a tall ask, but Josh Walker must‘ve been hoping the ground would swallow him up at stages on Sunday.

Having kicked three goals last week, Cameron had already bettered that tally by half-time, kicking four goals and looking incredibly mobile, leaving Walker exposed on several occasions as he failed to keep up with the star forward.

Appearing uninhibited by hamstring concerns and a full pre-season, Cameron in full flight is one of the toughest matchups in the competition.

“Jeremy is such a difficult opponent because he will come and meet the ball, he‘s big enough - most key backman capable taking on that type of person are a big sort of backman,” Dermott Brereton explained on Fox Footy.

“But then he‘s capable of turning you around, running to goal and the type of person who stops that player is a more agile key backman, which Josh Walker isn’t.”

The Roos did what they could to try and turn the tide against Cameron, rotating other players onto him, but he simply couldn‘t be stopped as his class combined with the ease of ball movement for the Cats made it a seven-goal haul for the Geelong star and his second of at least six goals so far this season.

It was his career-best bag and the most goals ever kicked in a game at Hobart’s Blundstone Arena.

Debutant’s mates steal the show

To say a player has come from nowhere to make their AFL debut can sometimes sound a stretch, but in the case of Oliver Dempsey it couldn’t be more apt.

The 19-year-old made his AFL debut on Sunday after being a basketballer for many of his teenage years before being taken with pick No.15 in the 2021 rookie draft.

“There’s not a whole lot to tell about his footy career because he was a basketballer until very recently. He was a speculative pick from our recruiting guys, they saw him playing a bit of school footy effectively and just saw a bit of x-factor they thought might be able to harnessed once we got him into an AFL program and that's what's happened over the last four or five months,” Chris Scott told Fox Footy pre-game.

“He’s just played his way into our team and it’s really exciting.”

By the end of the match, Dempsey had tallied 15 disposals, eight of which were score involvements and one of which was a goal assist.

The highlight, however, came in the third quarter when a quick snap netted him his first AFL goal, with his shirtless mates in the crowd loving his effort and sporting black paint with his surname across their chests.

“He’s come from absolutely nowhere. He’s got the basketball background as you can see, he can jump really high,” Jeremy Cameron said post-game.

“Goes for his marks, loves a goal as well and brings a lot of energy to the side. He hasn’t played much football at all and he knows how to play, so it’s exciting and he’s going to build.”

Originally published as Cats star kicks record bag as Kangaroos’ season hits rotten new low