Mature-aged recruit Darcy Fort enjoys dream debut as Geelong belt Western Bulldogs

Darcy Fort has certainly taken the long route to the AFL. The 204cm ruckman was first overlooked in the 2012 draft and has battled for a spot all over the place — until now.

AFL Round 9. 18/05/2019. Geelong v Western Bulldogs at GMHBA Stadium.. Bulldog Lachie Hunter and Geelongs Luke Dahlhaus battle at ground level . Pic: Michael Klein.

Given they hadn’t saluted at Kardinia Park since 2003 it was going to take something special for the Western Bulldogs to take down the ladder leaders.

When Geelong's lead blew out to 32 points midway through the third quarter dreams of that drought-breaking win were very distant.

Or so everyone thought.

Five of the next six goals in the game saw the margin back to nine points two minutes into the final quarter with the locals suddenly getting nervous in their seats.

Once again the brilliance of Marcus Bontempelli had his fingerprints all over the comeback with an extraordinary 70-metre goal late in the third quarter the highlight.

The problem for the Bulldogs is that keeping Geelong quiet for an extended period is near on impossible nowadays.

This finely-tuned Cats machine has a number of different gears this year and after the Dogs scare they proceeded to kick the last six goals of the game to win by 44 points.

And again the load was shared.

Patrick Dangerfield was enormous in the second quarter (he finished the game on the bench with an injured ankle), Tim Kelly big in the last term, Joel Selwood influentional a lot while Mitch Duncan was brilliant all night with three goals.

Above all of that though was Tom Stewart's contender for mark-of-the-year in the final two minutes of the game where he used Tom Liberatore as a step ladder to produce a classic hanger.

In the end the Dogs were brave but not in the same class with the bonus the impressive display from youngster Bailey Smith.

Gary Rohan of the Cats reacts after kicking a goal

TIME TO SHINE

Geelong’s defenders quite rightly strut around the hallways of GMHBA Stadium given they finished last year as the No.1 defence in the competition.

The other end of the ground was the issue for the Cats and as we've seen in the opening couple of months of the season, the dramatic steps they took to rectify it have worked brilliantly.

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And once again against the Bulldogs it was this new radically improved forward line which demanded the attention.

The Cats now have three players in the top seven of the competition’s goalkicking ladder after Tom Hawkins, Gary Rohan and Gary Ablett combined for nine goals.

Hawkins kicked four to move to 23, Rohan booted the opening two goals of the game before finishing with three to go to 20 while Ablett chimed in with two to move to 18.

Patrick Dangerfield of the Cats leaves the field injured

LONG WAIT OVER

Darcy Fort has certainly taken the long route to the AFL and he celebrated his debut in style late in the first quarter.

The 204cm ruckman was first overlooked in the 2012 draft and has had stints in the VFL with Werribee and Footscray before spending three years at SANFL club Central Districts.

Geelong reached out to the former local boy in last year's draft and at the age of 25 he debuted against the Dogs, coming in as a replacement for Esava Ratugolea who was rested.

Fort's moment came when he marked a Gary Ablett shot on the goal line at the 28-minute mark and then converted the shot.

Two more goals followed with the mature-aged recruit certainly not looking out of place.

Geelong 21.7 (133) bt Western Bulldogs 13.11 (89) at GMHBA Stadium

Goals: Geelong: T Hawkins 4 DFort 3 G Rohan 3 M Duncan 3 G Ablett 2 B Parfitt C Constable C Guthrie G Miers P Dangerfield R Abbott.

Western Bulldogs: MBontempelli 2 M Wallis 2 A Naughton B Gowers E Richards J Johannissen J Trengove L Hunter S Lloyd T Liberatore T McLean.

Umpires:Jacob Mollison, Brett Rosebury, Nicholas Foot.

VOTES

3 - Mitch Duncan (Geelong)

2 - Tom Stewart (Geelong)

1 - Mitch Wallis (Western Bulldogs)

BEST: Geelong: Duncan, Stewart, Dangerfield, Rohan, Selwood, Kelly

Western Bulldogs: Wallis, Smith, Hunter, Johannisen, Bontempelli