‘Everything concerned me’: Rampant Cats through to prelim final after Port turn in another finals shocker

We’ve seen Carlton rule out Charlie Curnow from their elimination final, more finals heartache for Taylor Adams, and another left-field play on the eve of a final by Jack Ginnivan, who attended a pub for dinner and drinks (of the non-alcoholic variety).

And, of course, Port Adelaide somehow turned in an even worse performance in a final, thrashed by 84 points in at home by a Geelong side missing Tom Stewart.

This was arguably the worst of Port’s finals failures under Ken Hinkley, poorer than their preliminary final hammering against the Western Bulldogs in 2021.

Agony and ecstasy: Rhys Stanley celebrates on the siren as Port players hang their heads.Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images

Coming off a straight-sets exit last year, Port were competitive until about midway through the second quarter before being steamrolled by the Cats.

Brandon Zerk-Thatcher’s lack of commitment to a high ball in the opening minutes set the tone for their night. The Cats were harder at the contest, cleaner with their ball-handling, while Port fumbled and bumbled.

Those in Port colours who showed the most application were the supporters who sat through to the end.

For the Cats, it’s a 13th preliminary final in 18 years. What a remarkable club they are. Many thought their era was over after missing the finals last year, but Chris Scott’s men have found a way. While others rebuild, they just keep contending – again and again and again.

The win was set up by their dominance in the midfield, an area many thought Port would be stronger in. Their small forwards feasted on a Port defence missing Dan Houston and Kane Farrell. Tyson Stengle, Shaun Mannagh and Gryan Miers combined for 10 goals.

The Cats will host a preliminary final, while Port stay at home next week against the winner of tomorrow night’s elimination final between the Western Bulldogs and Hawthorn.

That’s all from us for tonight. We’ll be back from 6.30pm (AEST) for the Dogs and the Hawks at the MCG.

Cats coach Chris Scott was taking it one week at a time in his post-match press conference.

Q: Chris, when you put your head on the pillow last night could you have envisaged anything like that?
A: No, obviously we had some concerns too. We were still thinking through the Tom Stewart thing, even the Sam De Koning one even though we had made that call by that stage. We have so much respect for what they [Port Adelaide] can do when they are hot. Last time we played them in Geelong they were hot early. If anything, that made us think hard about how we were playing at the time. I mean, we were confident that we were going into a finals series in good shape, but better for the lessons we learned in a bit of a lean patch we had. That Port game at Geelong was probably in the middle of that.

Q: How impressed were you by your six finals debutantes, the way they stood up under the pressure of September?
A: Yeah, it’s not easy. I think it’s easy to say “It’s just another game”, but you have to be not paying attention if you didn’t realise at least the stakes. I think you just have so many people in your ear telling you how different it is. Our job internally is to remind them it’s not that different. Then it gives us a bit more confidence because we know those guys so well. They haven’t shown any signs of, one getting ahead of themselves, which I think is the most important thing, but they haven’t shown any signs of being overawed. It’s the biggest test they have had so far and nice to see them come through it.

Q: Outside of grand finals where, in terms of finals without Tom coming in to play Port Adelaide, when many thought Port Adelaide were the favourites, where does that sit in terms of finals wins for you outside the grand final?
A: I find it really hard to rate them. I try as hard as I possibly can to think about each game in isolation, much less the seasons. I take your point. It was logical that they were good enough to finish second, earn a home final, team full of stars that if the game was on their terms they were going to be hard to stop. To play the way we did on the night, something we should be proud of and should feel good. But I’ve been in the game long enough to know that if you start getting ahead of yourself because you have one good night it will bite you pretty quickly.

Q: How important was the start tonight and did you sense there was any mental vulnerability in Port, given their history in finals and I guess to cash in on that and perform, how crucial was that for you?
A: I think the first comment you made, that a good start was important. Cameron kicks one that very few players can kick and that steadies your nerves a bit. Hand on heart I don’t think about the opposition in that sense. I’ve said for a number of years and probably people in your position either don’t believe me or choose not to, that stuff is theatre. You can make your own analysis, but that’s not something that motivates us. It’s more about how quickly can you get the game played your way? If that has some fringe benefits by putting some doubt in the opposition’s mind then great. But if you start thinking “We are going to play this way because that’s the way they will think about it”, you end up a bit confused.

Q: Cameron kicks a goal like that, when that goes through can it be estimated how big that is for a group? It seems to fire up the team from there.
A: For a long time I’ve been a big believer that to do good things you need a bit of luck. I see him at training and have seen him play enough that I know it’s not all luck, but you need things to go your way. He is an unbelievably skilled player and we depend on him. But your point is a valid one, guys that haven’t been there before, you are not human if you are not thinking “I wonder how this is going to go”, so when one of your best players slots one like that it is a bit calming. I don’t believe in this stuff, but if it’s kind of is this edging towards being our night or their night that helps a bit.

Ken Hinkley has held his post-match press conference … here’s what he had to say.

Q: Ken, how do you explain that result?
A: We have got to live in the present for a bit. Then you’ve got to reflect on what we have been able to do over the journey. Tonight was really, really disappointing. We weren’t at the level we needed. Maybe 40 minutes, but we were probably lucky to be in it for the first 40 minutes to be fair. Then Geelong just done a number on us big time. It’s disappointing performance clearly, but something that we have been better at for a large period of the last eight to 10 weeks. It’s not going to be easy to explain the performance tonight.

Q: I guess the obvious question, how do you now reset and go again?
A: That’s exactly what we talked about inside the rooms, was around what do we get out of it, as far as what did we learn from this game? Obviously, not many positives would come out of that. But how do we handle it and move forward quickly? Because we have to. We are probably going to play again next Friday night here at Adelaide Oval and we have to find a way. Our last performance like this we bounced out of it and found a way to get back into the mode of playing a bit better football than we certainly did tonight.

Q: Is that the Brisbane game?
A: Yeah.

Q: What concerned you most about the result?
A: On tonight’s result, everything. Everything concerned me. We have been great in defence and we are 57 or 58 points over the last six or eight weeks and we gave up tonight 140 or something nearly. That’s the first point. We have been very good at denying opposition marks in their forward 50. They took 22. There were so many parts. That’s why I’ve got to move forward quickly and talk around what we have typically been to what we were tonight. And what we were tonight was so far off the mark. We all understand it, we all get it. We understand that it was qualifying final, an opportunity. We didn’t execute like we should have.

Q: Your thoughts around maybe the smaller defenders, given Geelong’s smaller defenders, given Geelong’s small forwards were really able to have success.
A: I think Geelong’s small forwards to their credit have always been able to play that style of football. They are hard-working forwards. That’s what they do. Tonight they looked like a great, great team that was almost two levels above us for most of the night. We know that’s not completely accurate, but we have to live, as I said to the boys, for the next 24 hours we have to live with the facts. The facts are we were beaten badly in all facets of the game.

Q: You lost three finals at home and a few of them by a sizeable margin. Is there a psychological hurdle when it comes to finals at the moment?
A: I can appreciate that question because they are the facts and I always deal in the facts. The reality is we believe the group are better than that, but in the next 24 hours we have to live with that performance and live with the facts. Our last three or four finals haven’t been at the level we need them to be.

Q: How do you review this game, the way you ended it as well.
A: There has to be a balance on how we look at this game versus how we have to move forward. That’s my key point. We have to move the group forward really quickly. We have to own what happened but we also have to move forward quickly because we have got to get a chance to play another final next week, and something that we have earned. You get the opportunity to get a double chance. Unfortunately, we are going to have to use it, we didn’t want that to be the case. We didn’t set out for that to be the case. We have now got that actual reality in front of us.

Q: Do you think some of those finals results are in players’ heads at the moment?
A: I think those questions come about once the game turns badly. Maybe there is a moment where they dwell on stuff they didn’t want to happen tonight that did happen. I think that’s fair. But I think we hit the lead there at one point and felt like they were still OK. And that we were playing OK at that point, even though we were probably lucky to be that close. There is no doubt about the question. And how they feel about that. I’ve asked them to quickly unpack what tonight was and get themselves ready to play again next Friday.

Pathetic Power

Another sorrowful chapter was added to Port Adelaide’s tale of finals woes with the Power crashing to yet another embarrassing September meltdown, hammered by Geelong by 84 points in Thursday night’s qualifying final.

It was Port’s fourth successive finals defeat – three of them at Adelaide Oval – a streak that stretches back to 2021. And it was their ugliest loss since their record-breaking 119-point defeat, also against the Cats, in the 2007 grand final.

Jason Horne-Francis had 18 disposals on a miserable night for Port Adelaide.Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images

Beaten by the Power here in the qualifying finals in 2020 and 2021, Geelong turned the tables in emphatic fashion, feasting on Port’s plethora of panicky turnovers and poking repeated holes in the home side’s truly awful defence.

“It’s one of the poorer finals we’ve seen from a team in a while,” St Kilda great Leigh Montagna said on Fox Footy.

Co-commentator and Hawthorn legend Jason Dunstall was equally scathing.

“Their [Port’s] defence is horrible, and in attack they have only one method – kick long to a contest – and it ain’t working,” he said.

After a wobbly start, the Power rallied either side of quarter-time and looked a decent shout when Connor Rozee goaled on the cusp of half-time, before the Cats tore the hosts apart for the next hour, Port outscored 11 goals to one after half-time.

Butters battered

Zak Butters was subbed out at half-time.Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images

Port’s dark night took a horror turn when Brownlow Medal prospect Zak Butters was substituted out of the match at the start of the third quarter with a rib injury.

The Power vice-captain appeared to cop the injury when dumped in a heavy tackle in the opening five minutes in the lead-up to the Power’s first goal through Ryan Burton.

Butters, who was crowned the league’s most courageous player by his peers for the second year running during the week, was below his best while accruing only eight disposals in the first half.

Captain Connor Rozee was more fortunate, shrugging off a right shoulder stinger in the closing minutes when he got caught up in a tangle while tackling Cats captain Patrick Dangerfield.

Cameron on song

Jeremy Cameron carried Geelong’s attack with four goals, including two from the absolute top shelf.

His first, a miracle snap from the north-western pocket over Aliir Aliir, had the Cats up and about early.

His second came late in the second stanza, a fumble, pick-up and bouncing effort that he celebrated wildly, inches away from a Port fan’s face on the south-western boundary.

Cameron had plenty of help at his feet from Geelong’s small crumbers, with Tyson Stengle slotting four and Gryan Miers and Shaun Mannagh three apiece.

Marc Blicavs also spoke to Seven after his team’s big win.

Erin Phillips: Unbelievable game. Let’s go celebrate with your team, but I thought yourself, your defence was absolutely fantastic tonight.

Mark Blicavs: Yeah, it was a hot game. Quite literally, it’s 25 degrees. The plan was to try and run the forwards off their feet and run the forwards off their feet a bit. I sort of ran myself off, I was cramping the second quarter ... I thought we competed really well in the midfield, and to get the goals we did from the pressure we put on was fantastic.

EP: I think the record is 13th prelim in the past 18 seasons. It’s unbelievable. Do you ever stop and think of how unbelievable that record is?

MB: At times, but it’s just good, it’s a fun place to be around. We have prepared well for this. We got some great leaders. Obviously, ‘Stu’ [Tom Stewart] didn’t get up to play today but Pat was just unbelievable. We have got some good heads leading us and we are just having fun with some of the young guys, ‘Maxy’ and Ollie back.

Cats star Patrick Dangerfield has spoken to Channel Seven after the game.

Erin Phillips: Off to another prelim, unbelievable performance tonight.

Patrick Dangerfield: Really proud of our guys, the way they attacked the week. A little bit of a disruption yesterday with ‘Stewey’ obviously, but we had a really clear game plan with what we wanted to go after. You give our coaches a couple of weeks and we were very confident if we could bring our game and stay at the level long enough then good things would happen.

EP: You didn’t want to give yourself the sub going into the end of the game, wanted to stay on the field?

PD: Having too much fun. It’s a privilege to play this game. It invigorates you. So proud of our guys. It’s such a wonderful place to come into work. We have got a month to go.

Patrick Dangerfield leads the Cats off the field.Credit: Getty Images

Shaun Mannagh was best on ground in the VFL grand final in a losing team when he kicked six for Werribee. The Cats drafted him and he has kicked three goals in his first final.

Geelong are through to the preliminary final after thrashing Port Adelaide by 84 points.

It’s been a dirty night for the Power, but a brilliant night for the Cats.