As much as it will feel that way to Geelong, this was not a Cats flag fumbled.
Geelong might easily have won the preliminary final, and certainly they could have/should have been five goals up after the first 10 minutes, but that alone does not make 2024 an opportunity lost.
The Cats were a good side and played some good footy – they belted a Port Adelaide team that choked in the qualifying final – but they also had only the sixth-best percentage of teams at the end of the year.
Ollie Henry celebrates a goal.Credit: AFL Photos
Geelong had a side that was in quiet transition. Losing a prelim final that they were in a position to win is the disappointment but making the penultimate weekend at all with a remade team and an inferior midfield is the point that should be acknowledged.
Geelong were close and deserving in so many ways but their midfield was not good enough, their lesser players were not as good as Brisbane’s.
Max Holmes is now the Cats’ best midfielder and had a terrific game until he was injured, cruelly again in a preliminary final. Paddy Dangerfield is still a very good player, and he was serviceable in the prelim without being great, which is to be expected for a 34-year-old.
But consider that Tom Atkins had 12 touches, Tanner Bruhn had 10, Jack Bowes 13. All three rotated through the midfield at times. Sure Atkins was largely doing defensive jobs, but that is the Josh Dunkley role and he was one of the Lions’ best.
Rhys Stanley, if considered part of the midfield in the ruck, remains the most enigmatic of Cats. Geelong were most likely out of time anyway but Stanley hitting the post from the top of the goal square with 30 seconds to go did not feel like a surprise.
The ruck and midfield illustrates the Cats’ change. Young ruck Toby Conway would have continued to play more AFL games but for the injury that cost him the second half of the season.
A dejected Max Holmes after he was subbed out with an injury.Credit: AFL Photos
The midfield disposal statistics are not mentioned to embarrass players nor blame to them for the loss. They are quoted to reference the difference between Saturday night’s sides and why it was that privately Geelong, aware they were a side in transition, did not begin this season positioning themselves a flag challenger.
There is a very good reason why the Cats have targeted Bailey Smith and secured his interest in moving to Kardinia Park, and it is not just his extravagant locks. They need more midfield class and have seen the benefits this year of injecting more speed into their team.
With Joel Selwood retired, Cam Guthrie injured and Mitch Duncan moved to a flank, Geelong remodelled their midfield around Holmes and Dangerfield, bringing on Bruhn and others. Frustratingly another young mid Jhye Clark, pick eight in 2022, has struggled. The promising Mitch Knevitt will get more midfield time next year.
Much has been made of Hawthorn’s bold strategy of youth-first rejuvenation after the surprising year they had. The Hawks’ three-year process of jettisoning pretty much anyone who stood in the way of their young players getting valuable learning game time was franked this year by their remarkable bounce.
Hawthorn’s astonishing rise deflected attention from what Geelong have continued to do in quiet evolution. This is a radically different team to the premiers of two years ago. And they had this year’s the Rising Star winner.
If any team had the right to feel they fumbled a flag, it is GWS. With the teams they had, to be in two finals in a row and to cough up big margins was as bad as fumbling finals gets.
But then again ...
So that is the big picture. The little picture for Geelong was: bloody hell, they were close. There was that wasted first 10 minutes when they had just four points to show from what could have been five goals.
Kai Lohmann with a spectacular mark.Credit: AFL Photos
There was Shaun Mannagh’s strange dribble kick shot in the third quarter that didn’t work and was worsened by the ball hurrying to the other end for Charlie Cameron to goal. There was Tyson Stengle being tackled in the goal square and kneeing the ball forward where a lunging Ollie Dempsey could only shin the ball into the post before half-time. There was also later Stengle spraying a kick from 10 metres out and missing everything.
But when Ollie Henry kicked his second goal in minutes in the last quarter, and the fourth of his inventive goals, it felt like the Cats’ night, just as it did when Tom Stewart dragged down Zac Bailey after the Lion surprisingly tried to step inside a second tackle.
Against that, consider that the Cats laid just four tackles in the third quarter and their pressure rating – the mystery formula the boffins give a name to – was almost so low (149) it didn’t register in that term. Fans trying to get a half-time beer worked harder than that.
Consider also that Kai Lohmann, the fluffy haired cross between Trevor Barker and Warwick Capper in a Bears jumper, kicked 1.3. And Bailey butchered three more running chances.
Big O creates big opening
The unexpected impact of Oscar McInerney going off the ground was that it changed not only the Lions midfield, but it reshaped the forward line.
It happened at a time when Chris Fagan had urged his players to be bold, brave and abandon their Pavlovian ball movement kicking down the line, and instead bite off kicks and angles to surprise and wrong-foot the Cats.
Daniher into the ruck had the consequence of reshuffling the attack and opening space. It drew Eric Hipwood and Logan Morris out into more threatening areas and granted Lohmann greater licence to fly.
Oscar McInerney comes from the ground in the third term.Credit: Getty Images
Callum Ah Chee had been good all game, carrying on from his two previous finals, but he capitalised on the openings that stretched Geelong’s defensive set-up.
Brisbane look so much better when they play with speed on the ball. The more chaotic they have been the last two weeks, the better they have looked. The question is whether against the Swans they will be brave with their ball movement from the start, or will they again wait until the game is drifting from them?
No Victorian parochialism
As a league, the AFL is accused of being an expanded VFL and that’s understandable – because it is. But the notion that Victorians want to barrack for Victorian teams is the most fanciful twaddle in football.
Vics sighed with dismay at Hawthorn’s rise this year. For many, especially those from North, St Kilda and Essendon, the Hawks’ visit to the bottom four was far too brief. The non-Hawks liked the excitement of the way Sam Mitchell’s team played, but would rather it was not his team playing that way.
For those in this state not wearing black and white stripes, the sight of Collingwood winning a premiership last year caused gastric problems, while the non-Navy Victorians enjoyed the Blues’ train wreck in the second half of the year.
The grand final will be a NSW v Queensland affair – and that’s perfectly OK with most Victorians.Credit: AFL Photos
And there is no doubt it was not just Cat-hating Hawks who barracked hard and loud at the MCG on Saturday night against Geelong and the very idea they could be in yet another grand final. Even Richmond had the decency to win their flags and then go to purgatory.
They’d prefer Brisbane to Geelong. Dayne Zorko might be hard to love but kindly uncle Chris Fagan is not. And Sydney? The cartoonish villain Tom Papley might be the brother Hayden Ballantyne didn’t know he had, but what’s not to like about Errol Gulden?
So there you go non-Victorians, now go and enjoy South Melbourne v Fitzroy in the granny.
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