What do you all think about our performance against Hawthorn? We looked s**t - Dangerfield carried us on his own boot. Collapsed like a sack of potatoes in the last quarter and nearly choked out a loss if not for Smith saving us again. Where were the tactics to ice the game? Why did we fail so miserably to slow the play in the last 10 minutes? Big failures on the coaching department and team.
Probably a case of having an already depleted midfield with Danger forward, C.Guthrie still smarting from being booted in the face by Stodge (not a mention of that in the MRP as well) and no natural tagger with S.Selwood out. The mark by Shoenmakers was ordinary though as the only ones near the contest were Kolidasnji and Bews, we needed Lonergan, Harry or someone like that there too.
I am also taking some of these wins with a little bit of a grain of salt, as twice in recent games Geelong's won by dint of a missed final kick of the game, and the Port game had the ball in our defensive goal-square at the end too. But perhaps that's just the luck Geelong didn't get in the 70's and 80's when i was younger and seemed top lament us always losing the close ones.
If one checks Rogers Results site, he reveals that Geelong has now won 11 of the 25 games decided by less than 5 points between the Hawks and Cats.
The 25th match between these two won by 1 to 5 points and the 11th won by Geelong (including 8 of the last 10 2001-17).
Any wonder i wrote that Hawk rant thread years ago! So of the first 15 games between Geelong and Hawthorn decided by such a margin, Geelong had won just three!! So some of this might be nothing more than the great leveller....some reversion to mean from a number that was already crazily in favour of one side.
Just a side note, and a bit of a thing about the paradox of mathematics re percentages. John Devine coached Geelong to 28 wins and a draw in his 66 games. His win percentage in H & A, well all up given he never made Finals was 43.18%
Chris Scott has coached 81 more H & A games....for 80 more wins and one extra draw. And his win percentage despite the same denominator is just 31% more. In a way, that staggering statistic in winning 80 extra games out of 81 over John Devine doesn't even come close to doing him mathematical justice.