Geelong’s record close to flawless against top eight rivals

Geelong is spluttering at the wrong time of year but when September arrives one number will give the Cats confidence they can more than match it with the best.

Tim Kelly of the Cats (centre) reacts after kicking a goal against Richmond.

It is a number Chris Scott should erect in the Geelong changerooms on a 20-foot banner.

The Geelong coach has spent the past month defending a team that has dropped four of its past seven games.

But crunch the numbers on the record of current top-eight sides against each other and Geelong comes out squeaky clean.

The Cats have played seven games against teams currently in the eight and won six of them. The only blemish was a four-point loss to GWS.

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Not only have they won those games, they have an average winning margin of 35 points including several crushing wins.

Granted, they beat Collingwood, GWS and West Coast early and got Richmond when injuries had the Tigers at rock bottom.

But if the Cats are in need of affirmation about whether their best is good enough, it is right there in front of them.

In Round 1 it was Collingwood by seven points as the Pies were coming off a Grand Final.

They have knocked over Adelaide twice — by 27 and 24 points home and away.

And their win over West Coast, by 58 points in Round 6, came after pundits had predicted they might start the year at 0-6 instead.

For all the predictions of Richmond September glory, the Tigers have beaten just three of seven top-eight sides, losing to Adelaide, GWS, Collingwood (plus a win over the Pies) and Geelong.

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Tim Kelly celebrates a goal in Geelong’s big win against Richmond.

West Coast is on the march, having won 11 of its past 13 games, and all eight of their MCG and Marvel Stadium contests in the past two years.

And their record against top-eight sides stacks up, having dropped only three of seven games — one of them by a single point.

Their Round 1 loss to Brisbane at the Gabba (44 points) is long enough ago to be irrelevant, with the Geelong loss in Round 6 and the one-pointer against the Pies their only other blemishes.

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GWS (four wins from nine games against top-eight sides), Port Adelaide (four of 11) and Essendon (three of eight) all have concerns against the best of the best.

Brisbane has beaten three of five current top-eight sides, and the Lions’ draw has also delivered a perfect chance to finish in the top two.

Tom Atkins leaves Eagle Elliot Yeo in his wake. Picture: Michael Klein.

They take on Geelong and Richmond in the final two games of the home-and-away season, but will still finish with only seven games against top-eight rivals compared to Port Adelaide’s 11.

For his part, Scott believes the Cats can peak at the right time after a disastrous finals record since 2011 that has featured just three wins from their past 12 finals.

“(It’s) a little bit of a hole, there’s no doubt about that,” Scott told Fox Footy’s AFL360 this week.

“We’d like to be playing better, I’m not trying to sugar-coat that part of it, but we’d prefer to be playing our best footy a little bit later on.

“We’re really confident that we’re working on some things that we’ll see come through in the next couple of weeks, and we’ll be playing good footy when it really counts.”