An injured Patrick Dangerfield proves the difference for Geelong in Luke Hodge’s 300th match
AFTER the Cats held off the Hawks in another epic contest between the two clubs, SAM LANDSBERGER says Patrick Dangerfield’s performance was as brave as it was brilliant.
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PATRICK Dangerfield needs only one leg to win the Brownlow Medal and Coleman Medal.
OK, that’s being facetious. But yesterday’s game-breaking performance as an old-school full-forward was as brave as it was brilliant.
“I’m not prepared to call it ‘The Legend’ just yet, but it’s getting there,” Cats coach Chris Scott gushed afterwards.
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Why? When Dangerfield was carried from the field in the first term after colliding with Hawthorn captain Jarryd Roughead, the diagnosis from the cheap seats was a broken left leg. Panic set in.
But as quickly as the implications were pondered — Brownlow Medal favouritism for Richmond’s Dustin Martin and the dismissal of the Cats as a premiership force — they were forgotten.
Minutes later, the reigning Brownlow Medallist and back-to-back fancy was jogging the boundary and poised for a return.
Dangerfield was back, but wounded. Appearing in pain as he kicked and struggling to run, Dangerfield returned to the rooms for further medical treatment at quarter-time.
It appeared as if Cats coach Chris Scott had little choice but to plant his best player in the goalsquare.
Zach Tuohy asking the hard questions ... pic.twitter.com/PtgD0AyslP
— Sam Landsberger 🗯 (@SamLandsberger) July 15, 2017
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Turns out, that was Danger’s call.
“I wasn’t going to move too much, so (I wanted to) just stay deep and try to get dangerous in the forward line,” Dangerfield said.
Scott noted that: “When you’ve got an asset like that you tend not to argue with them too much”.
So Dangerfield walked to full-forward and what ensued was a performance straight out of the football time machine.
He kicked the Cats’ final two goals of the first half and restored Geelong’s lead with his third in a row to start the second half.
Soon, he had five goals in just 35 minutes of play.
“For a long period of the game there it just seemed like he was the most important player on the ground,” Scott said.
“So to do that with that sort of (physical) limitation …”
Scott’s sentence didn’t need finishing and the agony Dangerfield was in became chillingly clear post-game.
The champion conducted his media interviews sitting down sitting down, slumped against the wall with his left foot floating in a bucket of ice.
“I’m not a doctor, so at the moment it’s a sore foot,” Dangerfield said.
“I don’t know (if I’ll play next week). We’ll have to wait and see.”
Dangerfield’s blitz as a marking spearhead was foreshadowed at halftime.
As his teammates stretched and huddled on the MCG before the start of the third quarter, Dangerfield pinched a footy and crept away to the wing.
There he practised his set-shot routine with about 15 kicks to runner Nigel Lappin.
“You can seriously just watch the screen at different stages (playing full-forward), it takes a while to get down there,” Dangerfield said.
He finished with 5.6, four contested marks and a heap of score involvements. Incredibly, he didn’t return to the bench in the second half.
And what you won’t see on the stats sheet was the lesson he taught Hawthorn’s young defenders.
Plenty of his scores were generated by his footy IQ out-bodying a Kurt Heatherley in a marking contest or outsmarting a Kaiden Brand with a lead.
It forced coach Alastair Clarkson to make a move, and after Dangerfield’s fourth goal it was 300-gamer Luke Hodge who rolled back.
It didn’t work. The next entry, Hodge the fullback infringed and Dangerfield booted his fifth goal and scored himself a cherished memory.
“(Hodge) is a champion of our game I was really, really hoping at some point I’d be lucky enough to kick a goal on him,” Dangerfield smiled afterwards.
When the Cats broke 17pts clear to begin the final term, it was Dangerfield’s lightning hands which allowed Daniel Menzel to snap the goal.
A crunching bump with Hodge in the final minutes near halfback looked to rattled the bones of both players.
Seconds later, Dangerfield marked at full-forward.
But Dangerfield shanked the kick and logged his sixth behind, before Hodge gave the Cats an almighty fright as he banged through a goal with 18 seconds remaining.
But the Cats clung on and Scott was able to joke afterwards.
“If I’m going to pick holes, he wasn’t instrumental in our defensive performance,” he said.
When Dangerfield limped from the field everybody knew it was bad news. Turned out to be true … but in a twist, for Hawthorn.
GEELONG 3.3 6.7 11.9 13.10 (88)
HAWTHORN 3.2 7.6 9.10 12.13 (85)
Goals: Geelong: P Dangerfield 5 D Menzel 3 B Parfitt J Selwood R Stanley S Simpson Z Tuohy
Hawthorn: R Schoenmakers 2 T Mitchell 2 I Smith J Gunston L Breust L Hodge L Shiels S Burgoyne T O’Brien W Langford
Best: Geelong: Dangerfield, Henderson, J Selwood, Duncan, Menzel, Tuohy
Hawthorn: Mitchell, Shiels, Gunston, Henderson, Hodge, Hartung, Smith
Umpires: Simon Meredith, Ray Chamberlain, Craig Fleer
Official crowd: 70,345 at MCG
SAM LANDSBERGER’S VOTES
3. P. Dangerfield (Gee)
2. T. Mitchell (Haw)
1. L. Henderson (Gee)
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