Review Cats hang on by 3 points to beat Pies

[dudusmaximus]

Pre-2022 we had a troll problem here, were we had people just consistantly post anti-Scott diatribes (check out the six part probably 1000 + pages of Scott threads), flood the board with posts when we lost, disappear when we won. If they had their club set as Richmond or Hawthorn they would have been banned almost straight away. Instead they just messed with the vibe for years. I changed my club to demonstrate how easy it was to set your club as pretty much anything.

I just assumed you were a quant (i.e. know your way around interpreting game/player/trade stats) who works for GWS but supports the Mighty Cats

 

[Mr Meow]

was it me this year that said zero?
was last year
although very good reasons to worry about every game we have in May

Beating GWS in Geelong for the first time in ages would be a milestone.

Our list of scalps would then include Collingwood, Hawthorn, Adelaide and GWS (losing just once to a top 8 team, at the Gabbatoir). I think it's fair to put Freo in with the midrange teams rather than with those 4. Contenders beat fellow finals prospects, especially away from home. We are doing the business so far.

 

[Vdubs]

Beating GWS in Geelong for the first time in ages would be a milestone.

Our list of scalps would then include Collingwood, Hawthorn, Adelaide and GWS (losing just once to a top 8 team, at the Gabbatoir). I think it's fair to put Freo in with the midrange teams rather than with those 4. Contenders beat fellow finals prospects, especially away from home. We are doing the business so far.

Agree with all of that. Can we imagine GWS losing 4 in a row?
Some have them as contenders this year?
Form seems to be irrelevant this year.
They are under a lot of scrutiny this week.

 

[dudusmaximus]

Agree that Joel is THE club legend, but even he couldn't do the things Patrick did last night. In 50 years of watching the Cats, that game by Danger was as close as the way Gary Ablett (Snr ofc) at his best used to dominate games and make everyone around him look like schoolboys in comparison. If you never saw Ablett play in person (and youtube highlights are nothing like it), well, now you know what it was like. And Danger is an all round nice guy, not the very flawed individual that Snr was.

I am hoping COS will fill the void in excitement when PFD has to retire. That kid looks like he might be able to!

It is not that they are drawn to the ball.. It is that the ball is drawn to them.

In the vicinity of the ball, they "inevitably" end up with it. "Use the Force, Luke" stuff.

 

[Mr Meow]

Agree with all of that. Can we imagine GWS losing 3 in a row?
Some have them as contenders this year?
Form seems to be irrelevant this year

I had GWS around 8th before the season. They did start well but are now playing a bit closer to what I expected. Despite their form slump it would still be a decent scalp, and must win due to dropping the Carlton game. Losing the odd one like that away is okay, but you need to do the business once back home.

The good news is that we have 8 games left in Geelong after having only 2 so far. The bad news? Geelong isn't quite the fortress it was and we seem to play better at the G (mostly). You used to mark down 1 loss at most in Geelong each season.

Hopefully the supporters make sure it's a hostile atmosphere for opposition.

 

[The Unforgiven]

He was good enough to execute, we were dead in the water - he’s such a great finisher

However… he just didn’t have the legs.

And the reason for that was Ollie Dempsey blowing him up with his around the ground running.

I don’t think that was highlighted enough.

And Dempsey in his post game interview was bouncing around talking about how much he loved running the wide wings of the MCG

I don't doubt that he has the ability to kick that goal under certain conditions. Fatigue plays a huge factor in the success of an AFL player to consistently execute their natural skills.

 

[Commando]

Agree with all of that. Can we imagine GWS losing 3 in a row?
Some have them as contenders this year?
Form seems to be irrelevant this year

I liked them pre season but they've been awful the last few weeks
A loss would be more disappointing than v Carlton imo

 

[TheEscapeClub]

My take on the Blitz free against is the umpire wrongly awarded the free based on the first and second ball up/ throw up summarizing that the Geelong player had no intention of clearing the footy from the congestion (call it the vibe of the situation not the law of the AFL free kick.)

I sort of agree on your take of the Blitz free against. Blitz virtually did the same thing to cause the secondary ball up and could almost have been pinged then, the umpire wasn't letting him get away with it again and correctly penalised him the second time.

I've just watched it in slo-mo on Kayo. Blitz pretty much had both arms free. He was holding the ball in his totally free left arm and with his 80% free right arm was hanging onto Cameron's leg.

He did at least manage to milk 10sec off the clock.

The thing I did notice was that when the free was paid, everyone sprinted forward. Blitz was on the mark and Cameron was there, Sidebottom bent down to pick the ball up and Mannagh stood about 5m off him. Cameron and Sidey were getting in each other's way, so Sidey stood up right next to Cameron and let Cameron pick it up, Cameron then immediately gave it off to Sidey who munged it forward. Managh left himself in no-man's land. If he's there legally manning Sidey up, that kick doesn't happen, or at least doesn't happen in the time frame for someone to mark it before the siren sounds. A good lesson.

 

[OzeSparky]

Salute to his kid who asked if he could do his soccer goal celebration

Respect.

I thought it was a salute to Oisin to making Pendle's the main man at Collingwood again.

 

[Lana]

I just assumed you were a quant (i.e. know your way around interpreting game/player/trade stats) who works for GWS but supports the Mighty Cats

You can still keep that head cannon, no one can take that away from you.

 

[OzeSparky]

Mark O'Conner back to his normal self really is a massive asset to the team.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Agree with all of that. Can we imagine GWS losing 3 in a row?
Some have them as contenders this year?
Form seems to be irrelevant this year

This year is a weird year as no one is consistent. It's all about getting teams at the right time.
GWS are more than good enough to beat us but their form is down. And if Bedford can't play next week that really helps us too.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

I sort of agree on your take of the Blitz free against. Blitz virtually did the same thing to cause the secondary ball up and could almost have been pinged then, the umpire wasn't letting him get away with it again and correctly penalised him the second time.

I've just watched it in slo-mo on Kayo. Blitz pretty much had both arms free. He was holding the ball in his totally free left arm and with his 80% free right arm was hanging onto Cameron's leg.

He did at least manage to milk 10sec off the clock.

The thing I did notice was that when the free was paid, everyone sprinted forward. Blitz was on the mark and Cameron was there, Sidebottom bent down to pick the ball up and Mannagh stood about 5m off him. Cameron and Sidey were getting in each other's way, so Sidey stood up right next to Cameron and let Cameron pick it up, Cameron then immediately gave it off to Sidey who munged it forward. Managh left himself in no-man's land. If he's there legally manning Sidey up, that kick doesn't happen, or at least doesn't happen in the time frame for someone to mark it before the siren sounds. A good lesson.

I agree although thats a hard one because with the way the 5m rule is now (which i dont agree with) Mannagh is trying not to run into the protected area and give away 50m (as its basically game over if he does).

 

[Goggin Our Best]

This year is a weird year as no one is consistent. It's all about getting teams at the right time.
GWS are more than good enough to beat us but their form is down. And if Bedford can't play next week that really helps us too.

Hopefully we can read something into the round 1 thrashing of Fremantle , who had beaten Geel in Geel previous 2 games , and the players wanted to put a stop to that nonsense and Cats were very focussed and smashed them , and thats exactly what i hope happens to GWS , given that they have had that winning run in Geel

Personally wouldnt mind playing GWS in Canberra , they have got a horrendous record in Canberra

 

[cats_09]

Proof? I actually can't find anything in the rules that says that at all.

The idea of the 30 second shot clock was to minimise time wasting by players lining up for goal

If the siren has sounded, then it's not like there's further time to be wasted

 

[OzeSparky]

The idea of the 30 second shot clock was to minimise time wasting by players lining up for goal

If the siren has sounded, then it's not like there's further time to be wasted

Exactly.

 

[Hinkley29]

He wasn't tackled though. Blitz even said in the post match Cameron didn't tackle him, he just stood there really.

So how is it HTB

I've only watched it again just now and Blitz was right.

Seriously?

Cameron had one arm around blitz, and blitz was also holding onto Cameron. Cameron was 100% tackling blitz.

You need to watch it a 3rd time.

 

[Oisin_the_Goat]

Mark O'Conner back to his normal self really is a massive asset to the team.

His role should be taking the lethal oppo small forward Imo

 

[Hinkley29]

No, there are plenty of examples of it not being paid. That is my exact point. It is almost never paid.

Blicavs does the same thing 18 minutes to go in the last and isn’t pinged.

Sidebottom does the same thing with 10:40 to go in the last and isn’t pinged.

Holmes does it with 9:50 to go and doesn’t get pinged.

It happens literally dozens of times per game.

We will need to agree to disagree because those instances were very different to the final blitz one.

 

[The_Koulouriotis_Fan]

We will need to agree to disagree because those instances were very different to the final blitz one.

This is good example with the problem of criticizing umpiring decisions.

And I don’t mean you guys I mean the commentators.

No one can agree and everyone is right. It’s a nightmare to officiate our sport. Imagine every game your job being emphatically criticized by people who don’t understand the rules.

 

[Oisin_the_Goat]

This article illustrates how biased the commentators are

https://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/massive-impact-afl-world-divided-over-biggest-call-of-the-year/news-story/8c5b6066330fee232d257b866a084743?amp

 

[Generalissimo]

Mark O'Conner back to his normal self really is a massive asset to the team.

I've been backing him for a while now. He's a lot better a contested mark than he usually gets a chance to show, but I think the first half especially against teh Pies proved his value. He saved our hides at least four times that I can recall, and on top of that kept Jordan Degoey pretty quiet all night. We needed that with Tom Stewart out. I reckon he's playing as well this year as he has for the past five seasons.

 

[Play it Sam]

Seriously?

Cameron had one arm around blitz, and blitz was also holding onto Cameron. Cameron was 100% tackling blitz.

You need to watch it a 3rd time.

No, sorry. When interviewed Blics quite clearly said Cameron was smart and did not tackle him.
He then went on to say it was probably holding the ball, and he knew he made a mistake.
So if the player admits this, I don't get why a few posters think the free is controversial.

 

[Catsace]

I think we lost one where Hawkins kicked a point in the rain against GWS. That’s the only one that comes from mind.

Collingwood in 2022 would have a few after the siren wins I think.

Harry Taylor twice I think had shots that missed, once against the Crows over there, and certainly against the Dogs at Telstra Dome where the whole Dogs side manned the mark. But more often it's been the fact an oppo player has missed after the siren (Pav vs Gee 2008, Mundy vs Geelong at KP, Isaac Smith 2016 QF).

 

[And_ROOS]

Agree with all of that. Can we imagine GWS losing 3 in a row?
Some have them as contenders this year?
Form seems to be irrelevant this year

They have, they lose to the Crows, then Dogs and the Swans loss today was their third, the issue is this mirrors last year where they dropped 3 in a row to Swans/Bombers/Bulldogs before they rolled us at GMHBA by 4 points. That said we were equally in dire form.

That said they haven't lost 4 in a row since 2022 and in years where they do that they tend to miss finals.
They do have a good run after the Geelong match though so losing to us doesn't mean the end for them, but I would love us to really complicate their season because they then play;
Freo who don't travel well @ ENGIE
Blues coming off winning their annual GF against us and then struggling @ Marvel
Tigers aka yellow and black percentage boosters @ ENGIE
Port who are wildly inconsistent @ Manuka