Preview Prelim Final 25 - Geelong V Hawthorn Fri 19th Sept 2025 740pm @ MCG

[Munich]

It might be new injury. Perhaps Mannagh or Cameron.

It's just the Stanley revelation

 

[sleep]

**** this shit, we're going to pump these ****ing clowns.

Cats by 22 goals.

 

[4quarter_cat]

**** this shit, we're going to pump these ****ing clowns.

Cats by 22 goals.

Wouldn't that be lovely. Hand out an absolute drubbing and get in their heads for next year too.

 

[dazbroncos]

The moisture doesn't thrill me.

We've had issues in most of our losses with double touches, fumbles and slipping over in night games and ones of wetness.

If Hawks can pressure early and then "create inference" of pressure, we might struggle.

We cannot start slow - must be clean and put the pressure on them - we have greater finals experience than they do I think and we're gonna need it to outr them away.
CS playing 3D chess with the Stanley stuff - Blitz will run Meek silly around the ground so while Miers, Smith, Holmes and Demspey will be challegned I reckon a no Stanley team will put Blitz in their cross hairs - and you know Mitchell will want them to push the limits and break them really - the unsociable Hawks stuff - and even giving away a 50 or 2 as long as they get their "shot" in.

Blitz aint the best set shot for goal so a whack or 2 in the centre or around the ground that gives away a 50 wont bother him - its just their way and what they do.

Don fall for the tactics - keep the scoreboard pressure on them and take every ****ing chance that comes our way.

This is the way.

GO Catters

 

[Footy_Fan2007]

The moisture doesn't thrill me.

We've had issues in most of our losses with double touches, fumbles and slipping over in night games and ones of wetness.

If Hawks can pressure early and then "create inference" of pressure, we might struggle.

We cannot start slow - must be clean and put the pressure on them - we have greater finals experience than they do I think and we're gonna need it to outr them away.
CS playing 3D chess with the Stanley stuff - Blitz will run Meek silly around the ground so while Miers, Smith, Holmes and Demspey will be challegned I reckon a no Stanley team will put Blitz in their cross hairs - and you know Mitchell will want them to push the limits and break them really - the unsociable Hawks stuff - and even giving away a 50 or 2 as long as they get their "shot" in.

Blitz aint the best set shot for goal so a whack or 2 in the centre or around the ground that gives away a 50 wont bother him - its just their way and what they do.

Don fall for the tactics - keep the scoreboard pressure on them and take every ****ing chance that comes our way.

This is the way.

GO Catters

From memory we dominated the Lions in the wet earlier this year in Brisbane. Then in the second half when it dried up they ran over us.

I don’t think the weather will be an issue for us.

 

[BORIS332]

The moisture doesn't thrill me.

We've had issues in most of our losses with double touches, fumbles and slipping over in night games and ones of wetness.

If Hawks can pressure early and then "create inference" of pressure, we might struggle.

We cannot start slow - must be clean and put the pressure on them - we have greater finals experience than they do I think and we're gonna need it to outr them away.
CS playing 3D chess with the Stanley stuff - Blitz will run Meek silly around the ground so while Miers, Smith, Holmes and Demspey will be challegned I reckon a no Stanley team will put Blitz in their cross hairs - and you know Mitchell will want them to push the limits and break them really - the unsociable Hawks stuff - and even giving away a 50 or 2 as long as they get their "shot" in.

Blitz aint the best set shot for goal so a whack or 2 in the centre or around the ground that gives away a 50 wont bother him - its just their way and what they do.

Don fall for the tactics - keep the scoreboard pressure on them and take every ****ing chance that comes our way.

This is the way.

GO Catters

Those tactics will be even more prevalent this week after the Rayner free kicks in our first final. Mitchell will want the likes of Ginnivan and Wizard pushing buttons all night.

 

[fpm84]

Interesting to hear Sicily yesterday talk about how he hasn’t felt nerves like this leading up to a game in years.

Gryan did a presser at around the same time and basically said ‘well this is my fifth prelim in seven years so it’s nothing new or different’

 

[Footy_Fan2007]

Will be interesting to see if all this Merrett talk will be a distraction for the players.

They are now even talking about a round 1 2026 grudge match between Essendon and Hawthorn.

 

[Geelong_Sicko]

The Cameron calf rumours were true!!

He's always had a history with troublesome calf issues

 

[fpm84]

From memory we dominated the Lions in the wet earlier this year in Brisbane. Then in the second half when it dried up they ran over us.

I don’t think the weather will be an issue for us.

We also dominated Gold Coast in the rain this season, minus Smith too.

 

[magic_johnson!]

The moisture doesn't thrill me.

We've had issues in most of our losses with double touches, fumbles and slipping over in night games and ones of wetness.

If Hawks can pressure early and then "create inference" of pressure, we might struggle.

We cannot start slow - must be clean and put the pressure on them - we have greater finals experience than they do I think and we're gonna need it to outr them away.
CS playing 3D chess with the Stanley stuff - Blitz will run Meek silly around the ground so while Miers, Smith, Holmes and Demspey will be challegned I reckon a no Stanley team will put Blitz in their cross hairs - and you know Mitchell will want them to push the limits and break them really - the unsociable Hawks stuff - and even giving away a 50 or 2 as long as they get their "shot" in.

Blitz aint the best set shot for goal so a whack or 2 in the centre or around the ground that gives away a 50 wont bother him - its just their way and what they do.

Don fall for the tactics - keep the scoreboard pressure on them and take every ****ing chance that comes our way.

This is the way.

GO Catters

The rain is also the thing that I’m nervous about.

Not necessarily that we will play bad in the wet, just that it is an unknown.

The forecast is looking less ominous now though; 0-4mm with 50% chance of 1mm.

 

[dazbroncos]

Much like the Voldemort GF ( he whom shan't be mentioned 08) they are challenging above their timeline so Mitchell im sure will be showing that game to them giving the "if it bleeds it can be killed' speech.

And im sure he'll be pushing the "just go for it" mantra... all out and take the chance.

It might work too - but we have got to make the pressure on that attitude such that it cracks. Our small forwards must be the ever present nuisance that they can be. The mids and wings gotta be involved in everything. The Irish handcuffs have not only got to clamp - but attack when given the go.

And the backs can not for the love of god give Gunston a leading lane.

Anxiety rising.. must be Tuesday - its a good thing... we can do this.

GO Catters

 

[Cataholic]

Much like the Voldemort GF ( he whom shan't be mentioned 08) they are challenging above their timeline so Mitchell im sure will be showing that game to them giving the "if it bleeds it can be killed' speech.

And im sure he'll be pushing the "just go for it" mantra... all out and take the chance.

It might work too - but we have got to make the pressure on that attitude such that it cracks. Our small forwards must be the ever present nuisance that they can be. The mids and wings gotta be involved in everything. The Irish handcuffs have not only got to clamp - but attack when given the go.

And the backs can not for the love of god give Gunston a leading lane.

Anxiety rising.. must be Tuesday - its a good thing... we can do this.

GO Catters

We simply must be 'on' from the first bounce.

If we come out half asleep and jog around as we've done in some opening quarters we'll be in trouble.

We simply cannot give them a 30 minute head start before we decide to play.

They need to be laser focused at the first bounce, and prepared for, and determined to ignore, the rough stuff. They've got to focus solely on the ball until the final siren blows.

No slipping and fumbling, no injuries, and straight kicking please

 

[Del216647]

We simply must be 'on' from the first bounce.

If we come out half asleep and jog around as we've done in some opening quarters we'll be in trouble.

We simply cannot give them a 30 minute head start before we decide to play.

They need to be laser focused at the first bounce, and prepared for, and determined to ignore, the rough stuff. They've got to focus solely on the ball until the final siren blows.

No slipping and fumbling, no injuries, and straight kicking please

This is what we did in the Lions QF. No reason to think we wont back this up in the prelim first quarter against the Hawks.

 

[joe444]

As part of my ongoing mission to not be one of those people who writes, "should be a great game", here are some other reasons for confidence.

Ask yourself, do these players get into Geelong's best 23?

• Changkuoth Giath
• Sam Butler
• Mitch Lewis
• Mabior Chol
• Connor Macdonald
• Conor Nash

And as for:

It's too early to work blue, so consider this (source: ABC):

 

[CatToTheFuture]

As part of my ongoing mission to not be one of those people who writes, "should be a great game", here are some other reasons for confidence.

Ask yourself, do these players get into Geelong's best 23?

• Changkuoth Giath
• Sam Butler
• Mitch Lewis
• Mabior Chol
• Connor Macdonald
• Conor Nash

And as for:
View attachment 2428331
It's too early to work blue, so consider this (source: ABC):
View attachment 2428334

I dunno what has happened to CJ, he was tracking elite and since Barrass and Battle have come in he's struggled. From one of the standouts in that backline to sub in 20 games

 

[cats_09]

As part of my ongoing mission to not be one of those people who writes, "should be a great game", here are some other reasons for confidence.

Ask yourself, do these players get into Geelong's best 23?

• Changkuoth Giath
• Sam Butler
• Mitch Lewis
• Mabior Chol
• Connor Macdonald
• Conor Nash

And as for:
View attachment 2428331
It's too early to work blue, so consider this (source: ABC):
View attachment 2428334

We were linked to Nash as a FA target last year before he re-signed

So that would indicate the saw a role for him in our 23

 

[cats_09]

I dunno what has happened to CJ, he was tracking elite and since Barrass and Battle have come in he's struggled. From one of the standouts in that backline to sub in 20 games

Also now being linked to a move this trade period

 

[joe444]

We were linked to Nash as a FA target last year before he re-signed

So that would indicate the saw a role for him in our 23

Who would you drop for him?

 

[Cataholic]

This is what we did in the Lions QF. No reason to think we wont back this up in the prelim first quarter against the Hawks.

I'm wary of the week's break.

 

[cats_09]

Who would you drop for him?

Hard to know what role we had in mind for him or if we would have seen other list changes had he opted to come

Based on the QF team, he would have been selected ahead of Clark

But where this year we moved Mullin into the midfield in a tagging role, would that midfield spot have instead been for Nash with Mullin more cemented as a small defender like we saw earlier in the season?

That could likely mean O'Connor out of the side; similar to last year when he didn't break back into the 23

 

[Cataholic]

The first four words are the keys. The coach has shown in the past that the bar is high when it comes to proving fitness. Never more so than at finals time, as Max Holmes would attest.

I'm not too fussed if Blitz rucks. Meek will move him around at stop plays, but Blitz will clean him up when the ball hits the turf.

I may have missed it, but I didn’t hear Patrick say Rhys had no chance of playing on AFL360 tonight as a poster suggested.

Danger said something along the lines that 'he thought Stanley was no chance but he ran 10km last Friday and trained last night'.

 

[joe444]

Hard to know what role we had in mind for him or if we would have seen other list changes had he opted to come

As soon as I asked I thought, "sub", too. The interesting thing would be, though, that out of the list I gave we can't have six subs!

I agree with you, but, here are their average stats with one adjustment. Clark averages 51% time on ground, Nash 75%. So I've adjusted them to reflect Clark playing 75%, too.

Clark on the left. Nash on the right.



Nash gets a game, but not by as much as we'd think. And I suspect at the same stage of their careers, the story would be different.

 

[Del216647]

I'm wary of the week's break.

We had a week's break before the Lions QF? The days of us struggling after the week off appear to be well and truly over. Even in last year's prelim loss, we started very well.

You'd have to go back a few years where we got jumped in a final?

 

[joe444]

We had a week's break before the Lions QF? The days of us struggling after the week off appear to be well and truly over. Even in last year's prelim loss, we started very well.

You'd have to go back a few years where we got jumped in a final?

Didn't hurt us in '22, either. Quite the opposite. The Lions were totally cooked.





I wonder what our board was saying at the time?