Mark Duffield analyses West Coast’s heavy round 24 loss to Geelong
West Coast’s horror finish to the season could prove “devastating” for interim coach Jarrad Schofield, leaving the club’s board with a huge call to make on its long-term Adam Simpson replacement.
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West Coast don’t do GMHBA Stadium. GMHBA Stadium does them.
And this game at the Cattery produced yet another belting where Geelong rained first half goals upon the Eagles and promising young defender Brady Hough suffered a worrying knee injury just to make matters worse.
It was a poor end to another poor season for West Coast. It was a devastating end to Jarrad Schofield’s seven-game stint as the Eagles interim coach.
If you wanted to scratch around for positives — there was the fact that at half time this looked like being much worse. The Eagles rallied after the main break and won the second half. Jake Waterman had a big third term. Harley Reid overcame a poor first half to kick two last-quarter goals after big contested marks.
But when you are 100 points behind by halftime any positives are way too little way too late.
Jeremy Cameron bagged nine goals and the Cats won by 93 points.
It is telling a mere fraction of the story to say that the Eagles haven’t won in Geelong since 2006, when the midfield included Ben Cousins, Dean Cox and Daniel Kerr and they came from 54 points behind to snatch what many Eagles rate as the greatest home and away win in club history.
Even with Chris Judd absent it was a flash midfield and there were none of the flash Stadiums in place that now circle the ground.
Before the Eagles took the field for Saturday’s season ending debacle, they had been to GMHBA Stadium nine times since that 2006 victory for nine losses, eight to Geelong and one to Sydney.
They had scored 471 points and conceded 1104 for a percentage at the ground over 17 years of 42.6.
And this season the Eagles hadn’t been good on the road generally. Their 12 games in Perth had produced four wins and a percentage of 85.9.
Their ten games on the road prior to yesterday had produced just one win, a total of 621 points scored and 1126 conceded at a percentage of 55.1.
So this had the makings of an ugly finish to another ugly season before the Eagles picked their team.
When they picked the team and there was no Jeremy McGovern, sent for surgery on a dislocated thumb, and no Tom Barrass who hasn’t played for a month with either concussion issues, back and hamstring concerns or cotton wool around him to make sure his trade value is preserved. It left Schofield with depleted stocks to pick from.
This was going from ugly to something falling out of the ugly tree, hitting every branch on the way down and then landing awkwardly for good measure and a few extra bruises.
With defensive pillars missing Schofield needed extreme pressure and effort from his forwards and extreme two way run and effort from his midfield. He got neither, leaving a young, green defence ruthlessly exposed to slick ball movement to a classy attack.
He had Reuben Ginbey on Cameron (gulp), comeback kid Rhett Bazzo on Ollie Henry and Harry Edwards on Shannon Neale.
It started from the opening bounce. Cameron was left in space in a pocket. Bang, First goal 90 seconds in. Then Ginbey gave Cameron his left foot in a chase three minutes later. Bang. Second goal. Henry after three West Coast defenders fell like ten pin bowling pins. Bang. A third.
Cameron’s brilliant start aside the Cats didn’t even need the big names firing on all eight cylinders to blow this game open in the opening term. The Cameron carnage would come later.
Tom Atkins and Max Holmes had nine first-term disposals, Jack Bowes and Ollie Dempsey eight, Lawson Humphries and Tanner Bruhn seven.
Henry did his best Gary Ablett senior impersonation with six first term disposals and three goals. Rhys Stanley did his best Polly Farmer impersonation with seven first term disposals and a goal.
Neale played the Tom Hawkins role in attack — taking forward fifty stoppages and adding a goal of his own.
Eight goals to one by quarter-time. Game over. Smashed.
And as they used to say in advertisements, but wait there is more.
Eight goals in the first term became 10 in the second. Cameron went to half time with seven goals after booting five in the second term. The Cats went to half time sitting on a one hundred point lead. They had leapfrogged GWS on percentage to go into third spot and were closing on Port Adelaide in second.
Geelong’s joy was West Coast’s horror – played out on the field, in the coaches box and beamed into lounge rooms all round WA.
The numbers looked bad for the young defenders filling in for McGovern and Barrass but the reality is the damage was starting way further upfield with Geelong’s runners poking holes in West Coast’s zone and pressure, making delivery to smart forwards a mere formality.
Schofield needed supreme effort. Without it, he had no cards to play.
At half time the Cats were plus 79 in uncontested possession – the measure of a willingness to run knowing it would create opportunity because the disposals would not be pressured enough to affect them and the Eagles mids would not run hard enough.
Schofield finally got a response to the onslaught in the third term but it had come so late the horse had not only bolted it had won a Cox Plate and a Melbourne Cup.
Nonetheless at GMHBA Stadium the Eagles have to take what they can get.
They got a stellar quarter from Jake Waterman who either scored or was involved in the scores of others, they got greater competitiveness from their mids and they pegged the margin back to 86 points at the final break.
The fightback was overdue. The end of the season couldn’t come soon enough.
Originally published as Mark Duffield analyses West Coast’s heavy round 24 loss to Geelong
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