Geelong Cats: Coaches believe tall timber trio can work with Ratugolea, Henry and De Koning

A Geelong assistant coach has revealed the plans in place for the Cats’ defensive structure after Esava Ratugolea, Jack Henry and Sam de Koning played their first game together.

MELBOURNE. 06/05/2023. AFl. Round 8. Geelong vs Adelaide at GMHBA Stadium. Esava Ratugolea of the Cats . Pic: Michael Klein

Geelong assistant coach James Kelly believes the Cats’ defensive structure can work with three key talls, but has conceded there may be teething issues as they learn how to play together.

Premiership duo Sam de Koning and Jack Henry played with Esava Ratugolea for the first time in round 16, with clear issues stemming from miscommunication in the opening half against Sydney.

Kelly said the trio would learn how to play alongside each other after Geelong conceded 16 first-half marks inside their defensive 50.

“I’m really confident they can all work really well together in the backline, it’s the first time we’ve had them all in the team together so it’s a really small sample size,” he said after the draw.

“We don’t ever want to say we can’t do things, we can work with anything and we’re confident that these guys can get a bit of connection and the more they play together the more synergy they’ll have.

“It’ll start to work really well together, it’ll just take them a bit of time to learn when to play close to their man, when to peel off and go for an intercept, but all three of them are good at doing both.”

Ratugolea was subbed out in the third quarter of the contest, with Geelong opting to bring in a smaller defender in Jack Bowes after Ratugolea had limited impact on the contest.

He picked up just four disposals and was caught off-guard on several occasions as Sydney hit its targets inside the forward 50.

Kelly said the run of home games at GMHBA Stadium to finish the season should help the defensive unit work on its structure.

“It’s always good to have a run of home games, I think everyone enjoys playing in Geelong, it’s great for us and presents a good advantage,” he said.

“Like always we can’t just assume the ground is going to win it for us, but we train and do a lot of work on the surface so it does give us extra knowledge of how to play the size, it helps us with our structure a bit.

“We still have to show up and play well, but it’s certainly nice to have a few games at home to finish off the season.”

Originally published as Geelong Cats: Coaches believe tall timber trio can work with Ratugolea, Henry and De Koning