Review Cats defeat Saints by 45 points

[Tony Barber]

You watching games now are ya or mowing the lawns during cats games? It’s all about the QF now… matters little about the result in round 22 against the GC. They’ve played with each other for so long now I’m sure they know what they’re doing… but yes maybe game time is preferred to resting. Make your point in a less combative way would be better probably…
You on the deca flag or still squibbing an actual opinion btw?

I tend to not mow lawns at 7:30pm. I’m not the nutcase.

What the hell is a deca flag?

 

[Jumping Jack]

Not sure if already mentioned but did anyone catch C Scott’s comments during presser re Blicavs?

Was pretty open when discussing other injured or rested players, but when asked about Blicavs, said something along the lines of “not going into detail and respecting the players privacy”.

So does that mean Covid and Scott not wanting to disclose a players medical condition? Also noted that when cameras turned to players in the stand, I didn’t spot Blicavs?


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Haven't read the entire thread yet so no idea if this has been mentioned, but I have to give Dahl huge credit for last night.

He knows he won't be there in September, or next year, but to come in at literally the last minute off no preparation and to perform the way he did shows not only the character of him as a player, but the culture at the club. He put his body on the line all night like his life depended on it, but played his part and had what I thought was a pretty solid outing. If it's his last game for the club he can hold his head high.

It's players like him that make good football clubs.

I agree very much so given that may well be his last game and at 10mins notice his energy around the contest and attitude were super...a real club first guy..hope he sticks around in an off field role next year.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Not sure if already mentioned but did anyone catch C Scott’s comments during presser re Blicavs?

Was pretty open when discussing other injured or rested players, but when asked about Blicavs, said something along the lines of “not going into detail and respecting the players privacy”.

So does that mean Covid and Scott not wanting to disclose a players medical condition? Also noted that when cameras turned to players in the stand, I didn’t spot Blicavs?


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

If it was covid they just would have listed it as HS protocol so it must be something else.

 

[cats_09]

MRO findings:

Offending Player	Reportable Offence	Victim Player	Quarter	Grading	Sanction	Early Plea
Geelong Cats vs St Kilda – Saturday 6th August 2022
Tim Membrey #28 St Kilda	Striking (First Offence)	Sam De Koning #16 Geelong Cats	Third Quarter	Careless Conduct Low Impact High Contact	$3000	$2000

 

[Finknottle]

Stewart better lift his game he mite get dropped, did not touch the footy tonight. only joking lol

He hardly touched the ball in the first half. Got back on track in the 3rd quarter but he has struggled since is sabbatical. I also think teams have wised up and are trying to exploit his loose tagging.

 

[Finknottle]

semantics debate.

dont confuse my use of the term scapper with lacking in skills.

pendlebury is polish. Selwood is a scapper. Selwood in my view is a better player then pendlebury.

Both Selwood and Pendlebury have been inspirational leaders for their clubs. Pendlebury has better skills (sometimes sublime) but Selwood has the ability to to influence the game when the team needs it. I think other players see him crank up the engine and it encourages them to get onboard.

 

[Finknottle]

For the first time in 163 matches, we went in without one of Selwood or Dangerfield - the first time we got something of a look at how our midfield may start to take shape from 2023 (?) onwards

12 months ago, we likely would have been in for some pain in trying to work out who would step up in the guts and where would our leadership come from

But such is how this team has performed this year, the eveness of effort across the 22 or 23 that take to the field each week, that while we'll see standouts each week, in it's not often the same handful of players, nor are we reliant on seemingly a select few to step it up and get the job done

Perhaps that was the coaching team's plan - lets show the doubters how good our depth is.

 

[standupand]

Great team performance once again!

Loved seeing the players so happy and relaxed and celebrating each others victories on a few occasions out there after watching the replay. There's a good feel about this side: a cohesion and belief in the system that we're playing that is going to make us very hard to beat.

The selection issues are real issues. Scott said it was a cliche to call it a "good problem" to have. From a coaches perspective he said it's one of the hardest parts, which I thought was a really honest answer. He has a lot of empathy for the players and we all know that there are going to be some very unlucky ones miss out.

When you have that kind of selection pressure though, coupled with an approach that insists on 'managing' players this close to finals, it makes for a more complex situation.

Personally I think having players who are playing week-in week-out, and can maintain a certain level of performance and consistency, is the most important thing.

Take Stewart. Last week was his first game back after the suspension. He looked like he hadn't missed a beat. This week he was well down and possibly even one of our bottom few players. What concerns me about those players who are being managed right now is - can we bank on them for 3 solid weeks of finals football? Maybe they get injured anyway and the decision is made for you? But maybe they come back in and play super in week 1, but then the week after that they struggle and we lose a knock-out? It's just hard to know.

I would feel far more confident if we were just playing a best-22 type team right now and that our depth players were the one's waiting in the wings to come in if and when needed.

I mean- seriously hats off to someone like Dahlhaus who comes in and plays a role for the side, knowing that he mustn't be much of a chance to retain his spot no matter how well he goes right now. And who know who else must be having the same or similar thoughts - Parfitt? Menegola? Kolo looked pretty determined to impress out there and seemed to want to show other sides to his game - even offering a bit of uncharacteristic dash now and then from the back half. It's takes a pretty solid squad mentality to keep morale high in a situation like that.

 

[nohairandfair]

Scotty loves the SavRat. That's why I reckon he will never be traded, Scotty will pipe up. I'd take a trade and run for the hills.

It seems that Scotty isn’t ready to acknowledge the correlation between winning 11 straight and not having Sav in the side.

Surely he’s a break glass in emergency now if the unthinkable occurs and all of Stanley, Blicavs, Ceglar and Neale are not available.

 

[Generalissimo]

Surely he’s a break glass in emergency now if the unthinkable occurs and all of Stanley, Blicavs, Ceglar and Neale are not available.

I'd seriously consider big Toby Conway ahead of him too. He hasn't got an AFL tank yet, but he's got the desire and a good footy brain. I reckon in that situation a rag-tag ruck foursome of Conway, Henry, Hawkins, and de Koning can at least be competitive.

 

[cats_09]

He hardly touched the ball in the first half. Got back on track in the 3rd quarter but he has struggled since is sabbatical. I also think teams have wised up and are trying to exploit his loose tagging.

St Kilda did similar against him the first time around also and he didn't have his best night - they were playing thru his man which didn't allow him to drop off and go third man up. While he ended up with high number of touches, he also dropped more marks than I remember him dropping over a month of matches & he wasn't as clean

Watching the efforts that St Kilda & Hawthorn (4th qtr in particular) put into him, I'm surprised more teams haven't followed that blueprint

 

[cats_09]

It seems that Scotty isn’t ready to acknowledge the correlation between winning 11 straight and not having Sav in the side.

Surely he’s a break glass in emergency now if the unthinkable occurs and all of Stanley, Blicavs, Ceglar and Neale are not available.

Or maybe Scott's doing what we'd expect from a coach and publically support his players - that doesn't mean a certain player is going to be contention for senior selection though

Ratugolea has played in defence the last two weeks in the VFL, so a complete change of role - it would be very surprising if he was suddenly selected in the seniors as a forward or ruck option

I'd rather see Scott showing support for his players; the alternative of something like, "Ratugolea's a nice guy, but we don't see him as being in our best team" sounds a lot off

 

[allrighty]

MRO findings:

Offending Player	Reportable Offence	Victim Player	Quarter	Grading	Sanction	Early Plea
Geelong Cats vs St Kilda – Saturday 6th August 2022
Tim Membrey #28 St Kilda	Striking (First Offence)	Sam De Koning #16 Geelong Cats	Third Quarter	Careless Conduct Low Impact High Contact	$3000	$2000

Would have been a couple of weeks a few years ago

 

[goyoucatters]

Or it is and others memories are poor.

You wrote...

'Menegolas bullet passess are a weapon. Created a couple of goals with them tonight. I counted 3.'

So whose memory are you concerned about here?

#bythenumbers

 

[FredLeDeux]

Would have been a couple of weeks a few years ago

"Have to protect the head"

 

[Footy Smarts]

Haven't read the entire thread yet so no idea if this has been mentioned, but I have to give Dahl huge credit for last night.

He knows he won't be there in September, or next year, but to come in at literally the last minute off no preparation and to perform the way he did shows not only the character of him as a player, but the culture at the club. He put his body on the line all night like his life depended on it, but played his part and had what I thought was a pretty solid outing. If it's his last game for the club he can hold his head high.

It's players like him that make good football clubs.

Also loved his celebration when Zuthrie took that grab up forward. Dahl would know he's not in the 22 and someone like Zuthrie playing well means he's not going to force his way in but he's still celebrating him taking a pack mark up forward.

 

[standupand]

It seems that Scotty isn’t ready to acknowledge the correlation between winning 11 straight and not having Sav in the side.

Surely he’s a break glass in emergency now if the unthinkable occurs and all of Stanley, Blicavs, Ceglar and Neale are not available.

Except that there's no correlation. We lost to Hawthorn, Freo and St Kilda with Sav out of the side.

 

[Seeds]

It seems that Scotty isn’t ready to acknowledge the correlation between winning 11 straight and not having Sav in the side.

Surely he’s a break glass in emergency now if the unthinkable occurs and all of Stanley, Blicavs, Ceglar and Neale are not available.

I can just see stanley getting injured before the first final and instead of bringing in ceglar scott and the mc call in sav.

it was utterly ridiculous not to play ceglar with blicavs out, stanley coming back from injury and ceglar needing match fitness in case he is needed. Unless they have no real plans to play him and instead bring back sav.

 

[Mr Meow]

I can just see stanley getting injured before the first final and instead of bringing in ceglar scott and the mc call in sav.

it was utterly ridiculous not to play ceglar with blicavs out, stanley coming back from injury and ceglar needing match fitness in case he is needed. Unless they have no real plans to play him and instead bring back sav.

Stop getting worked up over things that obviously won't happen.

You're being too negative there so I'd advise you to add balance with a positive post.

 

[cats_09]

I can just see stanley getting injured before the first final and instead of bringing in ceglar scott and the mc call in sav.

it was utterly ridiculous not to play ceglar with blicavs out, stanley coming back from injury and ceglar needing match fitness in case he is needed. Unless they have no real plans to play him and instead bring back sav.

While it was a strange call to leave our Celgar on Sat night, the structure seemed to work for us on the night. He then played VFL - so guessing they were looking at that as being an opportunity for him to gain match fitness; though being concussed early in the match wasn't likely part of the plan

And if we lost Stanley, why would they bring in Ratugolea before the the guys who have actually been playing ruck in the VFL?

We just need to look at the select senior squad each week to know that Ratugolea doesn't look that close to senior selection at the moment - I can't remember the last time he was even named as an emergency, instead we've preferenced Neale & Ceglar as our back up tall options; surely that says a lot more about the current pecking order compared with the doom & gloom predictions

 

[JohnZ]

And if we lost Stanley, why would they bring in Ratugolea before the the guys who have actually been playing ruck in the VFL?

If the prophet deems it so, it is so deemed. It is not for us mere mortals to question the wisdom of the prophet.

 

[Stokey]

While it was a strange call to leave our Celgar on Sat night, the structure seemed to work for us on the night. He then played VFL - so guessing they were looking at that as being an opportunity for him to gain match fitness; though being concussed early in the match wasn't likely part of the plan

And if we lost Stanley, why would they bring in Ratugolea before the the guys who have actually been playing ruck in the VFL?

We just need to look at the selected senior squad emergencies each week to know that Ratugolea doesn't look that close to senior selection at the moment - I can't remember the last time he was even named as an emergency, instead we've preferenced Neale & Ceglar as our back up tall options; surely that says a lot more about the current pecking order compared with the doom & gloom predictions

I think the Esava talk is just for currency at year's end. As you said when was the last time he was an emergency and they have tried Neale twice over him.

Like many at the start I think Scotty thought Sav might be our NicNat so they pumped games into him. He then got injured and as expected he came back through VFL where his form hasn't warranted selection.

I honestly reckon he'll be shipped but it will end up a delist.
He might get a rookie list spot like Buzza from a lower team just so they can get an ear into our system.

 

[you pick one]

I think the Esava talk is just for currency at year's end. As you said when was the last time he was an emergency and they have tried Neale twice over him.

Like many at the start I think Scotty thought Sav might be our NicNat so they pumped games into him. He then got injured and as expected he came back through VFL where his form hasn't warranted selection.

I honestly reckon he'll be shipped but it will end up a delist.
He might get a rookie list spot like Buzza from a lower team just so they can get an ear into our system.

Think Esava is contracted for next year,

 

[moond0g]

Not sure if already mentioned but did anyone catch C Scott’s comments during presser re Blicavs?

Was pretty open when discussing other injured or rested players, but when asked about Blicavs, said something along the lines of “not going into detail and respecting the players privacy”.

So does that mean Covid and Scott not wanting to disclose a players medical condition? Also noted that when cameras turned to players in the stand, I didn’t spot Blicavs?


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

Yeah really interesting. I have no idea what he was referring to there. I presume not covid, pretty standard these days to list as H&S protocols.

Not even sure it was Blicavs that had the private issue, because he said you'd be able to connect the dots. Could be one of the inclusions that had the issue, i.e. they wanted to rest Blicavs but Tuohy or Menegola were under some kind of cloud, but once they were ok to go, they proceeded to rest Blics as planned.

Whoever it was hopefully they're ok and it's not something that will continue to be a problem over the next couple of months