Review Geelong tries its best to lose and finds a way to stagger to a 4 point win over Demons

[Heckler]

Scott decided, as he did last year, that playing flee flowing, attacking footy that results in a good win is not the right recipe for us. He’s a genius.

Give the man some credit for his vision and planning.
Scott has been coaching the flair out of the team for several years.

 

[Vdubs]

No doubt Taylor will be back in (Stewart out) for the milestones game.
That leaves a replacement for Atkins- maybe Parsons.
Not easy.

 

[cats_09]

Is Boris still at the club?

How can he and Scarlo not do something?

He's coaching the forward group

 

[Cataholic]

I do keep saying it, and the MC keep backing that up.
Only a certain amount of times it can be reiterated they aren't as good.

If that means we're an average team, well I know that already.

I get what you're saying Art, I do, but I just can't see what will be lost if we start playing more kids.

The spiel that they 'have things to work on' is crap, because our senior side does too. They're freaking ordinary, and have proved it time and time again. Yet we continue to waste games on guys like Menegola, Atkins and Steven......the game time being gifted to them for little return should be invested in our youth, because they're our future.

 

[thecatattack]

13 disposals (5 kicks/8 handballs) & 2 goals?

I would say he was serviceable, and did well in terms of getting on the end of others hard work

Outside of those couple of goals he's been pretty disappointing this season

I'd happily take 13 touches and 2 goals every game from a small forward.

That's 40+ goals a season in a normal year.

 

[Cursed Cat]

It's a funny ol' game sometimes, innit ...

At halftime I had Esava Ratugolea demoted and Mark O'Connor highlighted as a leader-to-be.

The first half was diabolical; so defensive - we'd dutifully go back over the mark to take our kicks despite acres of space begging to be legged by those willing to run.

We actually led by a not-insignificant 2 goals at quarter time thanks to some steady work from O'Connor down back, Danger providing outlet's overhead and Guthrie using his right boot to move the team forward rather than sideways.

But the team seemed unable to grasp the fact that they were on top all over the ground; we burned basically all of our opportunities in the 2nd quarter and in doing so gave Melbourne time to settle and work their way back into the game.

The 2nd half however saw both teams find their low-ish watermark and I think the two hapless sides arrived at a more or less fair result.

Ratugolea was putrid in the 1st half in the most frustrating way possible; he had his opponent beaten on multiple occasions, but with hands of concrete managed to snub every opportunity - however in the 3rd quarter it suddenly all clicked for the struggling KF; he took a couple of grabs around the ground, converted a set shot from outside 50 and crashed a couple of packs very hard to make a reasonable impact overall for a sub-50 game KF.

Parfitt was even better, a vital goal and showing once again that he is our best defensive midfielder, sticking tackles and generally curtailing his opponents when not in possession himself.

Mark O'Connor, so diligent in the first half, somehow managed to make two horrendous blunders in the dying minutes to nearly concede the 4 points to a pretty limited Melbourne outfit, but we came away with a pretty unconvincing 'W' ..

You know this team has entered the twilight zone when the maligned Cam Guthrie is your most reliable player on the day.

Good to see Tom Hawkins belatedly remember how to play football and thus confirm his relevance for us once again, and Paddy Dangerfield's game was a nice little snapshot of his impact at Geelong; all over the shop.

 

[frggr]

Steven must have played well in the first half?no one calling for his head

I'm just resigned to the fact he won't be dropped

 

[Larry Donohue]

Blicavs was very good today.
As was O'Connor.
Guthrie played his best game in a long time.
Kolo was solid
Tuohy is very lucky Stewart is injured or he would be Melbourne's captain. Still would if I was selecting.
Fort tried very hard and actually wore Gawn out.
Ratagolea's first half of the third quarter was the difference in the end.
For mine we need speed and players confident of hitting targets ahead of the ball.
Clarke and Narkle and Cockatoo are those players.
Take a risk at breaking the game open and get dropped.
In: Taylor, Clarke, Narkle
Out: Atkins, Stewart, Menegola

 

[Cataholic]

Not the first young player Scott will have ruined by playing him out of his natural position.

You can just see the likes of Narkle, Clark and Constable sitting back watching, and thinking 'what the??!'

 

[catempire]

It's a funny ol' game sometimes, innit ...

At halftime I had Esava Ratugolea demoted and Mark O'Connor highlighted as a leader-to-be.

The first half was diabolical; so defensive - we'd dutifully go back over the mark to take our kicks despite acres of space begging to be legged by those willing to run.

We actually led by a not-insignificant 2 goals at quarter time thanks to some steady work from O'Connor down back, Danger providing outlet's overhead and Guthrie using his right boot to move the team forward rather than sideways.

But the team seemed unable to grasp the fact that they were on top all over the ground; we burned basically all of our opportunities in the 2nd quarter and in doing so gave Melbourne time to settle and work their way back into the game.

The 2nd half however saw both teams find their low-ish watermark and I think the two hapless sides arrived at a more or less fair result.

Ratugolea was putrid in the 1st half in the most frustrating way possible; he had his opponent beaten on multiple occasions, but with hands of concrete managed to snub every opportunity - however in the 3rd quarter it suddenly all clicked for the struggling KF; he took a couple of grabs around the ground, converted a set shot from outside 50 and crashed a couple of packs very hard to make a reasonable impact overall for a sub-50 game KF.

Parfitt was even better, slotting two vital goals and showing once again that he is our best defensive midfielder, sticking tackles and generally curtailing his opponents when not in possession himself.

Mark O'Connor, so diligent in the first half, somehow managed to make two horrendous blunders in the dying minutes to nearly concede the 4 points to a pretty limited Melbourne outfit, but we came away with a pretty unconvincing 'W' ..

You know this team has entered the twilight zone when the maligned Cam Guthrie is your most reliable player on the day.

Good to see Tom Hawkins belatedly remember how to play football and thus confirm his relevance for us once again, and Paddy Dangerfield's game was a nice little snapshot of his impact at Geelong; all over the shop.

Still reliably the best post-match summaries are from CC.

 

[Cataholic]

Blicavs was very good today.
As was O'Connor.
Guthrie played his best game in a long time.
Kolo was solid
Tuohy is very lucky Stewart is injured or he would be Melbourne's captain. Still would if I was selecting.
Fort tried very hard and actually wore Gawn out.
Ratagolea's first half of the third quarter was the difference in the end.
For mine we need speed and players confident of hitting targets ahead of the ball.
Clarke and Narkle and Cockatoo are those players.
Take a risk at breaking the game open and get dropped.
In: Taylor, Clarke, Narkle
Out: Atkins, Stewart, Menegola

Won't happen.

You just know some of our guys will need to be on walking frames before Scott will allow kids into the side.

 

[FredLeDeux]

Blicavs was very good today.
As was O'Connor.
Guthrie played his best game in a long time.
Kolo was solid
Tuohy is very lucky Stewart is injured or he would be Melbourne's captain. Still would if I was selecting.
Fort tried very hard and actually wore Gawn out.
Ratagolea's first half of the third quarter was the difference in the end.
For mine we need speed and players confident of hitting targets ahead of the ball.
Clarke and Narkle and Cockatoo are those players.
Take a risk at breaking the game open and get dropped.
In: Taylor, Clarke, Narkle
Out: Atkins, Stewart, Menegola

Tuohy was our best 4-quarter player last week, and was good again today.

 

[cats_09]

I'd happily take 13 touches and 2 goals every game from a small forward.

That's 40+ goals a season in a normal year.

Totally agree - unfortunately we haven't seen consistency from him with his performances this year

Outside of the Hawks game he has a total of 13 disposals & 1 goal

The other issue with Atkins this year is the lack of tackling pressure - 5 tackles last week to go with 5 disposals, but only 1 tackle in his other 3 games

 

[Seeds]

He's coaching the forward group

Says it all. Our forward coach is a player who never played as a forward.

 

[winty]

BT would be shattered after that, considering how hard he was barracking for them to get over the line in the last quarter.

Only positive I can think of after today is I'm glad we're not Adelaide...

 

[Heckler]

Close games usually get me shouting at the screen over dumb decisions.
However watching this game had me frustrated to a point of numbness.
I would rather the cats lose while on their feet attacking than win on their knees defending.

 

[David the Cat]

Dull old game.....but a few positives...

Guthrie BOG...deserves a pat on the back ...was good all day and one of the few who seemed to want to get on with it.
Fort....I thought he did ok and kept Gawn honest. Beaten in the end but his goal was vital.
Miers...this kid is a very good footballer.
Steven...not great but much better (wouldn't be hard) and will get better. Calls for his omission not right IMO
Menegola ... committed at the contest and was at it all day.
Blicavs..must have covered a tremendous lot of km's..in our top 5 IMO..
Parfitt... tackled hard and played his part.

All that said, not rapt in the game plan...or Dangerfield's kicking for goal from 35 out...

 

[frggr]

Says it all. Our forward coach is a player who never played as a forward.

Yeah, I don't get the theory behind it at all. It's like a bowler being a batting coach

Shoulda got Roughead before the Saints did.

 

[Art Vandelay_]

I get what you're saying Art, I do, but I just can't see what will be lost if we start playing more kids.

The spiel that they 'have things to work on' is crap, because our senior side does too. They're freaking ordinary, and have proved it time and time again. Yet we continue to waste games on guys like Menegola, Atkins and Steven......the game time being gifted to them for little return should be invested in our youth, because they're our future.

Reminds me of this altercation with eth-dog couple of years back. Spoilered as no doubt not many will be interested.

Spoiler

This again. lol.
If these players are good enough they'll force their way in. If not then your complaints fall on deaf ears.

Okay then. Still averaged 38, including games on spin friendly wickets in SA, NSW and Junction. If you take out Swepson's best game he still averaged around the same, and there were no other spinners who got regular games this season. He's past it.

Truly disgusting the level of hate one man has for a good honest servant of this state, his adopted home.

"Hate". Okay. I've met the guy. Good person. All the time in the world for him. His performances from 15/16 onwards suggest he has one good game surrounded by many poor ones. Not rating him as a first class cricketer is completely different.

Ahmed had a stellar 14/15, his 15/16 was poor to average at best, barely played 16/17 admittedly due to Holland taking over as our #1 spinner but his 17/18 was very poor by any measure. High economy rate, high average, high strike rate. He's still a good T20 and ODD cricketer, don't get me wrong, but he's been on the decline for a while now, and I'm glad CV have recognized that even if you can't.

Nah the fact that you’re mentioning spin friendly tracks as a way to discredit him says it all. He’s on your sh*t list.
This has nothing to do with what CV or others have recognised. You’ve had it in for him for quite some time. Melt when he’s selected. To that end a part of me hopes Dan plays until he’s 40.

Well it does discredit him as a spinner. The fact you think it doesn't just shows how blinded by hatred you are.

It absolutely does. He's no longer FC relevant. He got taken apart by WA this year, who are the worst players of spin in the country.

You're putting lots of words in my mouth. I haven't said anything on his worth or recent performances.
Just seeing through you true reasons to make such comments. It's ok to admit you have for quite some time hated him as a player. We all know it be true.

I've said that I don't rate him as a FC player. I've also acknowledged that he's had one stellar season in FC cricket. I see him similarly to a Mark Baguley. Had his time, and was good then, but has been on the decline since and no longer worthy of selection.

But when will you admit that you're blinded by hatred for me? You only ever seem to pop up here whenever I say something you want to fight about.

The important part

I don't hate you at all. Don't hate anyone on here.
I just vehemently disagree with your insistence on youth. If this youth was so good it'd have pushed some senior players aside by now.

Short, Harper, Coleman, Grimwade etc so far have shown they aren't good enough to do that.
If that remains then I will continue to support the selection of White, Christian and Siddle. Integrity of selection is far more important than playing youth that could one day play for Australia, if they're gifted games now then how can we expect them to reach International standard later. It must be earned.

Same applies here. We want to breed the next gen of Cats premiership players and how will they achieve that if we gift them games and not be made to earn it. Of the guys under 25 in our side not many didn't earn their spot, and keep it on merit.

We need to adhere to those same standards and make these young players PUSH the old guys out.

 

[My Tilly]

I get what you're saying Art, I do, but I just can't see what will be lost if we start playing more kids.

Should of been doing that as early as 2016 instead of going for broke just one last time and topping up with veterans.
Some may hindsight is a beautiful thing but I been on about it for years. This team's last opportunity to legitimately snag another premiership was in 2013. When that was snuffed out in sensational fashion, we had to bit the bullet and fall in order to really freshen up the list. Collingwood did it after they last tasted success and look at the them now. A relatively youthful list on the up.
Meanwhile, Geelong put out a team last week which had an average age of 28 years.

 

[BigCat1]

I was.

Menegola too.

GO Catters

Menegola made some horrendous mistakes but he runs and runs and creates a target. Without guys like him we are just bombing down the line.

Far from a good game but I’d say he beat Tomlinson (600k). I mean 25 touches and plenty of metres gained.

 

[Cronin]

No. We don't.
Doing it in bursts when needed and doing it as plan a for 100+ minutes are two different things. We can't do the latter.

We win games when we move the ball quick, we lose games when we move the ball slow.

Going on this theory, why wouldn't the players be coached to move the ball quickly for the whole game?

 

[Art Vandelay_]

We win games when we move the ball quick, we lose games when we move the ball slow.

Going on this theory, why wouldn't the players be coached to move the ball quickly for the whole game?

Because we lack the talent to execute it all game.

 

[Glassjaw]

Tuohy was our best 4-quarter player last week, and was good again today.

His first quarter was utter trash. Spoiled team mates, sold them into trouble, took idiotic options. Our best football last year was without him in the side. Genuinely believe he's a list clogger.

Hate to say it, but the more I see the more Scott reminds me of Mourinho. Defend at all costs and be as arrogant about it as possible.

 

[Seeds]

Because we lack the talent to execute it all game.

All game? What part of the game was it employed? We look backwards almost everytime before we even consider an attacking option.