Analysis: How Geelong has defied age, critics to become premiership favourites again
It seemed last year the Cats were finally heading down the ladder fto regroup, now they’re the flag favourites. SAM LANDSBERGER analyses how they’ve done it.
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Jeremy Cameron booted his first AFL goal in front of 11,127 fans in a 129-point loss playing for Greater Western Sydney in Hobart.
On Saturday the Dartmoor delight threaded goal No. 600 in front of the biggest home crowd Geelong has ever staged, with the 87,775 pipping the attendance for a Queen’s Birthday game against Essendon in 1989.
Cameron curled through a left-foot snap from a forward 50m stoppage that was rucked by Tom Hawkins during the second quarter.
“400 more to come,” Gryan Miers quipped to this masthead after the Cats’ 13-point win against Carlton at the MCG.
Cameron is 31 and unlikely to emulate Buddy Franklin’s feat of joining the illustrious 1000-goal club.
But could you really rule anything out when it comes to this remarkable football club?
Rewind 18 months and Cameron and Hawkins were among Geelong’s golden oldies that limped out of a retirement van dressed as pensioners.
Sporting grey wigs and woollen flat caps they were hunched over and hobbling on walking frames.
It was Whacky Wednesday in 2022 when the freshly-minted premiership team took the you-know-what out of calls they were too old and too slow to win the flag.
A retirement home bus as Geelong's premiership pensioners arrive for Mad Monday!
— SuperFooty (AFL) (@superfooty) September 26, 2022
GOLDhttps://t.co/xreMCztdXjpic.twitter.com/aUqgEWUYTt
Four days earlier they had fielded the oldest team to ever win a VFL-AFL premiership.
But on Saturday they fielded a run-and-gun line up certain to challenge again for this year’s flag.
The Cats are 7-0 and on top of the AFL ladder. It is their best start to a season in 11 years, and if they defeat the Demons at the MCG next week it will be their best start in 13 years – which was when Scott coached his first premiership.
The regeneration from the 2022 champions has been remarkable.
There’s been the return of Max Holmes (who heartbreakingly missed the grand final with a hamstring injury) and the addition of Ollie Henry, Tanner Bruhn, Jack Bowes and Ollie Dempsey.
Henry, Bruhn and Bowes were traded in after the 2022 flag and Dempsey was drafted as a rookie.
The superstar status of Patrick Dangerfield, Hawkins and Cameron often hog the headlines.
But the legs of hardworking half-forwards Gryan Miers (ran 16.1km), Bradley Close (15.7km) and Tyson Stengle might just be the secret sauce under Scott.
Their work can only truly be appreciated when watching the Cats from the stands as they work up and back and up and back like Michael Phelps in a pool at Olympic time.
Speedster Holmes is becoming Geelong’s version of Nick Daicos at halfback and their blistering ball movement makes them so bloody efficient.
If you looked at the stats sheet you would have thought the Cats had no right to win Saturday’s September-esque contest.
The Cats generated 21 fewer inside 50s than Carlton, were smashed at the contest and yet they led for almost all of the match.
How did they do it? Well, the Blues’ clearance wins gained them field position and then the Cats pierced their way out of congestion.
“That’s what we focus on – no matter what happens in the game we’ll find a way to score or find a way to defend,” Miers said.
“Today we might’ve lost the centre clearances and it was living in their backline – but that’s how we can exploit them in one way because we can get a lot of space in our forward half then.
“It was pretty special and the way Carlton kept fighting, but we kept responding was just so pleasing – probably for both sides, too.
“I don’t think they’ll walk away too disappointed, but we can walk away quite happy that we did our job.”
The Cats entered Saturday averaging 96 points from 57 entries. On Saturday they scored 118 points from 45 entries.
Premiership contenders have to go to school on Geelong’s knack of punishing backlines like the strictest of school headmasters.
The Cats’ set-shot accuracy is off the charts.
Miers credited that to Shannon Byrnes – “He’s the No.1 goalkicking coach in the country” – but did so with a smile that suggested it might not really due to the dual premiership goalsneak.
The contrast in efficiency was evident everywhere on Saturday.
Take this for example. The Blues generated the first six inside 50s of the final quarter and mustered three behinds.
The Cats’ first entry was capped by a Zach Tuohy goal and their next entry – courtesy of a 50m penalty – gifted Cameron his fourth goal.
Midway through the third quarter the Cats had targeted Cameron inside 50m four times for a return of 3.1 (19).
Conversely, the Blues’ first 10 entries aimed at Charlie Curnow generated a return of 1.1 (7).
That is not a knock on Curnow – he lifted against Jake Kolodjashnij as the game wore on – it was simply a reflection of the way the game was played.
This was a ding-dong battle between two genuine top-four outfits. The match-ups were tantalising.
Curnow v Kolodjashnij. Harry McKay v Sam De Koning. Hawkins v Jacob Weitering. Zac Williams v Stengle. Mark O’Connor v Sam Walsh.
It was box-office stuff you hope serves as an entree for the business end of the season.
Cameron Guthrie returned for the Cats and played behind the ball in Tom Stewart’s absence. Stewart should return from concussion against Melbourne next week and Miers cannot wait.
“Melbourne are flying, too,” he said.
“They’re one of my teams that I think can really fight for the flag.
“They’ve won one (2021 flag), they’ve let themselves down in two finals series, but they are such a good team with unbelievable players and an unbelievable system, too.”
Carlton fans smirked on Thursday that the last time the Essendon-Collingwood Anzac Day blockbuster was a draw – 1995 – the Blues bagged the flag.
Perhaps Cats supporters pointed out that their premiership pattern points to another this year. They have a habit of winning one every two years – 2007, 2009, 2011, 2022 and 2024?
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