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When The Going Gets Tough The Cats Get Going

Posted on June 11, 2012 1:17 pm

The hardest games are always against sides of equal talent that, for one reason or another, absolutely must win. This was the challenge facing Geelong at Etihad on Friday night and the Cats prevailed with an equal measure of their famed determination and persistence. It was a victory that had much more merit than the media was prepared to give. All the talk pre game was about the pressure on Carlton and how the Blues would come out fighting for their season. Well Carlton did come out fighting, as we knew it would, and led for most of the night. But when Geelong’s persistence was eventually rewarded on the scoreboard there was a familiar look about the Cats and, as they have done so many times over the last five years, they found a way to win. And if this was meant to be a season defining game, then Geelong can proudly claim it to be the best win of the year.
Against a team blessed with a combination of speed and height, the late omission of the J Pod would have hurt the Cats. Particularly as Hawkins was probably not fully fit and Wojcinski perhaps underdone. But the Tomahawk, though quiet, scored a crunch goal when it was needed and Wojo broke the lines at crucial stages of the game. Carlton would have put a lot of time and planning into the dangerous Stevie J but obviously not enough into Harry Taylor. Down back, up forward and even in the ruck, the ubiquitous and versitile Mr T was a star. The pinpoint pass to Trent West at the back of the goal square late in the game was arguably the match winner.
I hardly ever comment on umpires but was there anyone amongst the 47,000 crowd who didn’t see the ball hit the post in the second quarter when the umpire called for a video review? The umpires missed so much that everyone else saw and saw so much that everyone else didn’t. Luckily for the Cats their poor performance was consistent for both sides.
So Geelong goes into the bye 7/4. Not setting the world on fire but thereabouts…… and if the Cats are thereabouts in September it will not sit comfortably with their rivals.