When the day finally comes and Tom Hawkins succumbs to age Paddy Dangerfield has identified his replacement. It’s Paddy Dangerfield.
No, he wasn’t speaking in the third person, but Dangerfield has long considered the natural evolution of his game to be a move to the goal square. It might have already happened but for the ageless Hawkins – who has been a welcome impediment.
“It’s what I had always imagined would happen at some point, but I don’t know when the big fella is going to finish,” Dangerfield said.
“I haven’t seen a player hit 30 and get better before. The thing that is forgotten last year with Hawk is he literally had three weeks of pre-season before we started and we played him because it was the best thing for the team, was it the best thing for him?
Patrick Dangerfield and teammate Tom Hawkins in 2021.Credit: Getty Images
“No. It would have been better to do an eight-week conditioning block, but it was the best thing for us to have him [Hawkins] out there. So we didn’t help him necessarily, but he is a selfless guy. He still kicked 50-odd goals.
“But at some stage definitely, definitely I’d like to play out of there [the goal square], but that space is sort of filling up with a few of the players we have got in that area of the ground, but I think one day I would love to.
“I would prefer the big guy up there obviously. The key to becoming a great player is having greatness around you. I have been able to bomb the ball, helicopter-style to Hawk, and he makes me look great. How easy is that? The same with Tom Stewart – he covers three players because he is such a freak.”
Having missed the finals last year after a flag the year before the temptation is for Geelong to view the season like the Chicago Bulls and fancy something akin to The Last Dance.
But to suggest a Last Dance hints at the era ending and the Cats don’t take that approach. For Geelong it’s one long dance.
Patrick Dangerfield with the lure of the AFL premiership cup in the foreground.Credit: Getty Images
“I just think you take a Next Dance approach, every season is the next opportunity to give it a crack to win it. That’s the best thing about being involved in Geelong, the list management gives us an opportunity every year to win. And they will be the first every year to put their hand up when we do get to a stage where [we can’t compete for a flag].
“We are not at that stage now, we might be a few steps back, but I don’t feel like that’s any time soon for us [falling out of contention].
“We needed luck to win the grand final, and we didn’t have a whole heap last year with injuries. It’s never just black and white I don’t think. I think we are still very much in the window everyone talks about.
“There were plenty of stories written when I came in ’16 that we had a three-year window and then that’s shut. So many clubs sell youth, I am not buying youth. Youth is absolutely a part, but it is the now.
“That’s (youth is) just buying yourself time to escape criticism, or you can just say no we are going to let it all hang out and give it a go, and you can criticise us if you like, but we are going to have a crack. And that’s what we are doing.
“As a player that is what you want to be involved in, and I still feel like our older players are bloody good players. There’s a balance of bringing in youth and exposing it to the level, absolutely, but you have still got to earn your way. It’s a healthy balance there you can find.”
Cam Guthrie’s quad injury – which was confirmed on Tuesday – will sideline him for at about 10 weeks and will create an opening for one midfield spot for the next generation.
For both the older players and the young the Cats changed their training program this summer to be heavily focused on repeat explosive bursts.
“It’s not necessarily speed, what we have done is high-volume explosion to speed. Speed in AFL lingo is plus-24km/h, and you can blab on about the science but higher exposure to high speed theoretically means it bulletproofs you for when you play a game where your loading is not higher than what you have been training, it’s almost a downgrade on what your training speed has been,” Dangerfield said.
“I remember the first session I had in the off season, literally not training at the club but the off season, and it was just this speed exposure I had never had before and I thought how are the hammies going to hold up to it? It’s like anything, you do enough of it and you become conditioned to it.
“The proof will be in the pudding but it feels like we are in a good spot.”
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