Geelong falls hard after Port Adelaide onslaught
A pair of goals in the final seconds of the first half showed Geelong’s issues this year. Here’s where things are going wrong, plus the crucial form slump that has hit Jeremy Cameron.
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At the same venue and against the same opponent last year, Geelong copped a third-quarter barrage.
Led by a red-hot midfield pumping the ball out of centre bounces, Port Adelaide put eight goals on Geelong in the premiership quarter in round 19, 2022.
On Thursday night, it was a repeat, as the Power on-ballers flexed their muscle and destroyed the Cats in 23 minutes of perfect football, to boot seven goals in a row.
In that period, from the third minute mark to the 26th, Port Adelaide had 30 more disposals, eight more clearances, 10 more inside-50s, 16 more tackles and scored 43 points to zero. From clearances, the Power scored 24 of those points, dominating from the source.
Where in 2022, the Cats were able to dust themselves off, look each other in the eye at three quarter-time and hit back, this year’s version of Geelong couldn’t rise to the task.
It is the system and some telling lapses that continue to let Geelong down and keep them far from premiership contention.
The Cats kept fighting, with goals to Ollie Henry and Mark O’Connor late in the third term giving them life, but they were outclassed by Ken Hinkley’s men.
Sure, four members – Patrick Dangerfield, Jack Bowes, Mitch Duncan and Max Holmes – of the Geelong side were returning from lay-offs and Dangerfield and Tanner Bruhn went down with fresh injuries, but this was still a premiership-level side.
Just four players from the round 19, 2022 side were missing on Thursday night: Cam Guthrie, Shannon Neale, Joel Selwood and Rhys Stanley.
In the team that won the grand final two months later, Brandan Parfitt was subbed in for Neale, and Parfitt is currently toiling away in the VFL.
Personnel has been an issue all season and has been a valid excuse, but the more troubling problem is Geelong’s defensive system.
The Cats have let through 100 points five times, it’s most since 2017, and the season has just passed the halfway mark.
Normally so good at limiting opposition chances in the forward-50, the Cats defenders are left bailing out water in a leaky boat, and the pattern is clear to Chris Scott.
“If you look at the outcome, we‘re just getting scored against when the ball goes inside our defensive 50, which is traditionally something we’ve been good at,” he said post-match.
“But it‘s clearly an area we need to improve.
“Clearly, there are some things that aren‘t working for us at the moment, but we’re going to hang in.”
Defender Zach Guthrie said the defensive woes came down to “a combination of reasons”.
Geelong survived a series of lapses against the Western Bulldogs before the bye, with lackadaisical defending and some players left ball watching allowing goals.
“As a defence we have probably just given up a couple of those goals that in the past we would have been able to stop,” he said.
“We probably haven’t defended those situations as well as we did last year but it can be tough when the opposition has their tails up.”
On Thursday, Sam De Koning knocked a ball that was sailing through the points back into play in the second term and Sam Powell-Pepper beat five Cats to a ball that led to an easy Quinton Narkle goal.
Seconds later at the next centre bounce, Brad Close made a rare appearance in the middle and inexplicably sprinted straight through the centre circle, leaving the dangerous Connor Rozee with acres of space facing goal.
The clean entry into the forward-50 set up an easy Jeremy Finlayson mark.
It was a passage of play that would be repeated over and over in the third quarter.
Geelong’s good work in a spirited first half was undone in the 90 seconds before the main break, with the lead down to seven points.
Veteran Isaac smith bemoaned the mistakes at half-time and Guthrie said they were critical to handing Port Adelaide the momentum.
“As defenders we probably gave up some easy goals which brought them right back in it,” Guthrie said.
ONE IN, ONE OUT
Just as Geelong fielded its strongest midfield in weeks and was ready to reintegrate premiership ruck Rhys Stanley next week, it fell apart again.
Dangerfield will not be seen for weeks as he deals with his partially collapsed lung and cracked ribs, while Bruhn was instrumental to Geelong’s hot first quarter before he went down with a shoulder complaint.
It has been a story of Geelong’s season.
“The pattern has been ‘get a couple back, lose a couple’,” Scott said.
“(Last year) we were going OK and we found a way to win some games and when we got them all back and they played together week after week we hit our straps.
“We‘re optimistic that can happen again.”
Where Geelong managed to limp on last year and get to a position to launch, it has failed to get moving.
WHERE’S JEZZA?
Geelong supporters would have been rapt if they were told pre-game that a former GWS Giant named Jeremy would kick a bag on Thursday night.
But it was Finlayson not Jeremy Cameron who hit the scoreboard.
Cameron held the title as the AFL’s best player after the first month of this season when he had fans reaching for the calculator to do the maths on kicking 100 goals in a season.
He hasn’t been terrible recently but the superstar hasn’t been able to deliver massive games to help his side over the line.
Cameron has returns of one goal, none, two, two and one in the past five matches, four of which were losses.
He has averaged just 1.6 marks inside-50 in that time, less than half of the 3.6 he was going at in the opening eight rounds.
The All-Australian took just one mark in total on Thursday night, his lowest tally in 25 games.
Cameron single-handedly won Geelong multiple games last year before the team lifted around him.
Even at his best he wouldn’t have been able to do much about the third-quarter massacre that went on in the midfield, but the Cats are crying out for a big game from the goalkicker.
Next Thursday against Melbourne would be a perfect time to deliver.
Leaky Cats down under Power surge
The super strength that had powered Geelong through its most recent era of success is gone.
For so long, it was just so hard to score against Chris Scott’s men.
The Cats had conceded 100 points five times in their 103 games before this season began.
It has only taken 13 games so far in 2023 for them to watch an opponent hit triple figures five times.
Traditionally those big numbers on the scoreboard can be blamed on a wobbly back six, giving up too many easy goals.
But on Thursday night, as Port Adelaide’s irresistible midfield got humming towards a 38-point win, it was Geelong’s onball division that caused the problems.
So often, that outrageously good duo of Zak Butters and Connor Rozee found space in the middle, got out into the open and created easy opportunities.
Jack Henry battled to contain Jeremy Finlayson, otherwise goals were invariably created by the red-hot Power through an ease of ball movement.
Running into the forward 50 without pressure and with so much space, the Cats defenders were left powerless at times.
Over those years of recent success, Scott had always found a way to craft a top-tier defence, to squeeze the opposition and to ground opposing attacks down.
Not so this year.
The Cats started brightly at Adelaide Oval, dominating the ball early and having 33 more uncontested possessions in the first term, as Gary Rohan inspired a brilliant six-goal quarter.
That effort was well outclassed by the home side after half time, as the Power smashed the Cats around the footy in 20 minutes of football perfection.
Led by Butters, Rozee, Jason Horne-Francis and Ollie Wines, the Power midfield simply kept the ball off their opposition.
Port Adelaide had six of the first seven clearances and at one point had 10 inside-50s in a row, in a withering seven-goal burst.
So many of those attacks came with ease, as Geelong defenders watched their opponents receive silver service.
It’s no shame to give up a big score to Port Adelaide at the moment, as Ken Hinkley’s men are playing with the freedom of a genuine flag threat, but the pattern has set in now for Scott’s team.
Geelong will not make the top four from here and the reigning premier will not do any damage in the finals without finding a way to clamp down in defence across the whole ground.
Like we saw in that first term, Geelong is still capable of periods of brilliance, but right now the Cats can’t find a reliable defensive method.
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Originally published as Geelong falls hard after Port Adelaide onslaught
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