Review Cats defeat gallant Pies by 6 points to get into another PF

[Stokey]

MOC showed he can do a job after his early jitters subsided.

Miers and Danger were imperfect but fine.

Stanley and Blicavs were disastrous but the latter we have to back in and it would be a big call to bring Ceglar in for Stanley at this stage. I'm not entirely against it if they rolled the dice though.

Stanley was just slow. No finals urgency with anything he did.

 

[bulletproof]

Scott has benched Stanley once before like that, it was against Hickey at the SCG, and he didn’t regain trust in him again for a while. Wouldn’t shock me if they switched to Ceglar.

Stanley has had such a great year, I would stick by him.

 

[catsfootyfan89]

Scott has benched Stanley once before like that, it was against Hickey at the SCG, and he didn’t regain trust in him again for a while. Wouldn’t shock me if they switched to Ceglar.

Stanley has had such a great year, I would stick by him.

Me too. I think you just have to back him in at this point. You know he's going to have his down days. We can't rely on Ceglar to see us over the finish line, I don't think.

 

[00VicWard001]

NGL, 6 points down against the Pies with 2 minutes to go was pretty much the worst possible scenario V the Pies.

I also think we are lucky that scores ended up tied when they kicked their final goal instead of a behind and us up by 5. Can totally imagine the Pies picking off the kick-in for a 7 point play then locking it up for the final few minutes like we ended up doing. With scores tied, we need to score, we move the ball aggressively, they can't defend, easy goal, game over.

I don’t think they could have played a better game. Really dragged us out to deep water. But it turns out that we have a lot of belief too. And we just executed as we’ve trained. The right players were in the right spots at the right times.

You’re right about having a reset to a centre bounce. We had them on toast for clearances and just got to work.

 

[year of the cat]

Scott has benched Stanley once before like that, it was against Hickey at the SCG, and he didn’t regain trust in him again for a while. Wouldn’t shock me if they switched to Ceglar.

Stanley has had such a great year, I would stick by him.

Going to be a discussion point now though. Tend to think you are right and they’ll err towards giving Stanley another opportunity. But he was woeful. Ceglar showed in his match, albeit against limited opposition, that he can play with vigor and aggression. I’d be very, very tempted to make the change if Ceglar is fit and ready.

 

[Seeds]

You may or may not believe this, but I actually thought before the game that Gary Rohan was going to have a big game today. Probably was our best forward today.

He played very well. Think cameron was our best foward though.

 

[00VicWard001]

Jeremy Cameron's ridiculous conversion from a boundary set-shot was right up there

Rohan played like a man possessed, but looked like he was in his own head the whole time. Just focused and drowning out the external.

JC looked like he was supremely confident and took the entire crowd in. He rose to the occasion because he was built for the big time.

 

[00VicWard001]

Hope Scott ticks off Cameron and Rohan for rolling on the ground, makes them look like losers.

As his interview went on he started to sound more and more like Dimma. had a good sook.

 

[00VicWard001]

He was there to stop pendlebury (who is a big bodied mid and a player he famously stopped in a home and away game many years ago).

pendles got 34 disposals tonight. Blicavs 11.

I thought he was on DeGoey too. Then i saw Axe put on DeGoey and Guthrie to head to head with Pendles in the last.

 

[Seeds]

I thought he was on DeGoey too. Then i saw Axe put on DeGoey and Guthrie to head to head with Pendles in the last.

Blicavs went to ruck in the last. Was matched up on pendlebury for much of the earlier part of the game. But they do swap. Especially with pendlebury clearly getting on top of him.

 

[year of the cat]

No getting away from it that Blicavs had another finals shocker. Was like a deer in headlights. He may need to lower his arousal levels - he didn’t play with any composure. Wasn’t even an effective negating influence.

 

[Schmegg]

I've watched the game a second time minus the stress and although I didn't think he was spectacular, my appraisal of Miers game lifted.

He made a couple of clever tap ons early, one of which lead to a Cameron snap he'd nail 9/10 times. I think another in the game actually did end in a goal too. His primary role seemed to be getting ground balls inside 50 (which stops the oppo rebounding it too) and giving a quick handball to keep the play alive. One of these lead to his registered goal assist and another resulted in Close snapping into the post from 10m out. He kept presenting as the game wore on.

Miers does a lot of little things that keep our attacking plays in sequence. I still didn't love his game but he contributed.

Agree Miers plays an unsung role, didn’t make any glaring errors that he’s been prone to and he’s always looking to move the ball forward. It’s not surprising that most of our goals came from general play, and not so much stoppages, Miers-Close-Stengle-Rohan have been a huge part of that.

 

[00VicWard001]

All the umpires’ fault View attachment 1498882

They wanted more free kicks. There was a play in the last where Pendlebury scragged Guthrie and the umpires let it go, so Guthrie did very same thing back and we won the ball. Plenty of those moments in the game. I’m glad they let it go, as it was much better than how over-umpired the Dees / swans game was.

 

[catempire]

Surprised dekonnings game not getting more praise. He stepped up like a seasoned veteren when he needed too. was so composed in some absolute key aerial duels and safe hands when others werent.

Amazing composure.

Just can’t not mention he felt he needed to do a Kolo special pass in the first quarter. Maybe because Kolo was off injured.

 

[catempire]

I thought he took a while to get going, Sidebottom comfortably beat him early on.

Opposite wings? I’m pet sure Tuohy had Sidebottom at the start.

 

[Seeds]

Amazing composure.

Just can’t not mention he felt he needed to do a Kolo special pass in the first quarter. Maybe because Kolo was off injured.

Someone did a kolo special pass to him in the second qtr too I think but he was composed as ever and clunked it with clean hands.

 

[00VicWard001]

Jesus I loved that centre bounce when Atkins just dropped DeGoey.

Anyone who’s played sport or done anything where you are fatigued and ready to give knows the feeling where you mind says, take it easy. And most humans do. We listen to ourselves when we are exhausted. And we give up or just put in time not effort.

Special players/humans have this switch where when it gets hard, they have this mental resolve to go even harder. Atkins epitomises this. And when you have a quiet savage like that in your corner, it lifts you up too.

 

[Schmegg]

They wanted more free kicks. There was a play in the last where Pendlebury scragged Guthrie and the umpires let it go, so Guthrie did very same thing back and we won the ball. Plenty of those moments in the game. I’m glad they let it go, as it was much better than how over-umpired the Dees / swans game was.

It’s a final, they don’t pay soft frees generally, like the Jack “Louganis” dive , Hawk did that a couple of times on the wing and up forward, on the wing it puts us in a bad spot as we are instantly a man down because he hasn’t competed.

I don’t mind it when the whistle goes away, it really puts the acid on the players to sort the game out themselves and stop looking for frees.

 

[Schmegg]

Opposite wings? I’m pet sure Tuohy had Sidebottom at the start.

Wasn’t one of Tuohy’s best games that’s for sure.

Something about no one wanting to tackle either Sidebottom or Pendles all game bothered me. Sidebottom seems to be playing on another Timezone, slow as a wet week yet no one goes near him.

 

[00VicWard001]

The slipping over is a worry. Matters more in finals as players go for the man in contests more.

Compared to watching say Sydney, I think we have a slight team. You need big bodies in finals (Menegola?) and we are a bit small.

If we are to win with smaller bodies we MUST take the game on more and use our pace. We looked best tonight when we took the game on and gave Collingwood something to think about.

Delivery I50 even when under relatively little pressure could also improve. Lower the eyes boys.

Not sure about this - everyone says we’ve got some of the biggest mids in the AFL. Danger, Guthrie, Tuohy and Blitz, and then Selwood and Duncan aren’t far behind.

 

[Schmegg]

Jesus I loved that centre bounce when Atkins just dropped DeGoey.

Anyone who’s played sport or done anything where you are fatigued and ready to give knows the feeling where you mind says, take it easy. And most humans do. We listen to ourselves when we are exhausted. And we give up or just put in time not effort.

Special players/humans have this switch where when it gets hard, they have this mental resolve to go even harder. Atkins epitomises this. And when you have a quiet savage like that in your corner, it lifts you up too.

Atkins was born ready for big moments late in games, the kid is full of everything a player needs in desperate times.

 

[00VicWard001]

Don't get me wrong, I was frustrated by Dangers game - in particular his second half. But besides one out on the full, I thought his first half was pretty good and he actually bridged the gap until Sel (Guth to a lesser extent) had a huge influence.

Nothing fancy of course and it was pretty grubby fare but he got clearances and contested footy when a few others started invisible. He set the tone as far as "come on guys, we're not gonna get bullied and let them win the 1v1s" and stopped it being a blow out before we turned it around.

Watch who gets a scrappy snap clearance into our 50 for our first goal (Danger kick, Miers feeds Cameron who goals) to settle things. If the Pies had anymore territory dominance early I think they'd have broken the dam wall. Danger helped in that regard.

Yep, he played his part. And that’s what he’s asked to do. We have no other player like him (apart from maybe Atkins) - who can just put his body on the line against the flow. Very lucky to have him. He makes the team stand taller.

 

[year of the cat]

Heard pre match that Parfitt had a little niggle. Will be considered for the Prelim though.

 

[00VicWard001]

As far as the overall flow of the game: we had a shocking start. It was 0.3 to 3.4 with 2 mins left in the first. 3 pretty gettable shots wasted by us somewhat negated by the Pies missing a few.

11.9.75 to 7.8.50 from that point forward. Which is probably more in line with what we and neutrals might have predicted. I was disgusted with the start. If you watch the game from 5 on the clock in the first, you probably think "Cats not great but more or less on top".

Besides conceding the cheap goal at the end of the second and Blicavs silver platerring an eventual De Goey goal in the last, the Cats tightened up and also started scoring at a decent rate. In other finals where we start the first 20 odd minutes without a goal, we ended up with 7 or 8. So it felt like this time we had gears to go to and a refusal to give in to prolonged panic. Sure, it stayed nervy but from that point the Pies arguably made more mistakes than Geelong.

Well said. We were solidly scoring through general play - and most of their scores looked like they were from our turnovers.

 

[Drunkcat]

Why was he benched then?

Spot on he was a witches hat, hell I would even have Tsap before him that's how bad he was, joke but he was bad