Round 4: Geelong vs. Richmond

[GeeCat]

Big Cats come back
Thursday, April 15
FIONA WELSH

CATS YOUTH POLICY: Steve Johnson chats with what could be the next crop of AFL stars, from left, Sam Threlfall, Ben Threlfall, Jack Scarlett and Luke McCoy. Photo: REG RYAN


GEELONG will be strengthened by the return of experienced trio, Brenton Sanderson, Peter Riccardi and Ben Graham, for its crucial clash with Richmond at Telstra Dome on Saturday night.
Exciting on-baller Gary Ablett is also in contention after getting through half a game in the VFL last week following an early season battle with osteitis pubis.

Geelong coach Mark Thompson said the availability of the senior players would cause some selection headaches, despite the Cats' failure to win a game after three rounds.

``We've got a few choices to make. It's probably the hardest choice . . . its amazing we haven't won a game yet, but we're struggling to put people out of the side. It's a bit of a task,'' he said.

Sanderson (calf), Graham (chest) and Riccardi (groin) all trained solidly last night, but Ablett spent about 20 minutes on the track before heading indoors.

Midfielder Corey Enright will be sidelined for up to six weeks after surgery on Tuesday night to repair his broken left wrist.

Thompson said Enright underwent minor surgery to insert a screw in the slight crack.

He said despite the loss of Enright, there were some promising signs in Geelong's one-goal loss to Sydney last week, although decision making under pressure was still a concern.

``We played better but we still showed in the last quarter where we have to improve,'' he said.

``It's about taking some risks to try and win the game in tight situations. We were up (against the Swans) and we are playing wide and safe. We have to be better than that.''

Thompson said he didn't expect the ill-feeling between Richmond and St Kilda after their clash last week would be a distraction for the Tigers.

``I wouldn't think so, it's a bit out of hand at the moment, but it will settle down,'' he said.

``They will get enough time in the week for their preparation.''

On the war of words being waged by the two clubs he said: ``If they both had their time over again they would both do it differently.''

 

[GeeCat]

Cats to regain key quartet

5:13:23 PM Wed 14 April, 2004
Samantha Lane
Sportal

Geelong hopes to regain Ben Graham, Peter Riccardi and Brenton Sanderson for its important clash with Richmond at Telstra Dome on Saturday night. And with the Cats still searching for their first victory of the season, Gary Ablett is poised to play his first senior game this season after overcoming a groin complaint.

Vice-captain Sanderson and veterans Graham and Riccardi have 621 games of experience between them, and last played against St Kilda in round one. They have since been sidelined by injury and witnessed Geelong suffer defeats to Carlton and Sydney.

Graham (chest), Riccardi (groin) and Sanderson (calf) all trained at Skilled Stadium on Wednesday, though defenders Tom Harley and Darren Milburn did minimal work.

Cats football manager Garry Davidson said Harley, who wore a compression bandage on his right calf, would be fine to play against the Tigers and that Milburn had suffered a corked thigh in round three. Ablett left the main group after training for about 20 minutes. He played half a match in the VFL last weekend.

“We’ve got a few choices to make. Probably the hardest choice, it’s amazing, we haven’t won a game and yet we’re struggling to put people out of the side. So it’s a bit of a task,” Geelong coach Mark Thompson said before training.

Thompson said Graham would play in attack alongside fellow talls Henry Playfair and David Haynes.

The Cats were spirited in a narrow away loss to Sydney at the weekend, but Thompson said his players need to improve their decision making under pressure and take more risks.

“We were up in the game and we were still sort of playing wide and safe. It’s just not on; we’ve got to get better than that.

“We played better and the review was a little bit better, but we still showed in that last quarter some incidents that we need to improve on. We’ve just got to continually strive to get better.”

Midfielder Corey Enright had surgery on his fractured wrist on Tuesday night. The club expects him to recover in four to seven weeks.

Meanwhile, Thompson does no expect his rival coach Danny Frawley to be distracted by his verbal jousting with St Kilda’s Grant Thomas, after Richmond suffered a heavy defeat on Monday.

“It’s a little bit out of hand at the moment, but it will settle down and they’ll get enough time in the week to concentrate on their preparation… I think if they both had their time over again they’d probably do it differently.”

 

[GeeCat]

May as well point out that young Gary appeared on SEN the other day and stated that he would be having another run in the VFL this week, then go see his doctor after.

 

[Wrenny]

PLAYERS
Backs: M. Chaffey A. Kellaway T. Zantuck
Half Backs: C. Newman D. Gaspar K. Johnson
Centre: T. Roach M. Coughlan B. Hartigan
Half Forwards: J. Bowden J. Schulz A. Fiora
Forwards: A. Krakouer B. Ottens S. Morrison
Followers: W. Campbell, N. Brown, B. Marsh
Interchange: R. Hall, G. Tivendale, C. Hyde, K. Pettifer
Emergency: L. Weller, R. Hilton, S. Fletcher

 

[gwAllan]

Teams as selected

http://gfc.com.au/default.asp?pg=news&spg=display&articleid=143355

Experienced trio returns for Cats
6:55:57 PM Thu 15 April, 2004
Matt Burgan
Sportal/Exclusive to gfc.com.au

The Cats will welcome back three experienced campaigners - Brenton Sanderson, Peter Riccardi and Ben Graham for Saturday night's clash against Richmond at Telstra Dome.

They replace Corey Enright, who will miss up six weeks with a fractured wrist, and David Spriggs and Jarad Rooke who have been dropped from the line-up that went down narrowly to Sydney at the SCG last Saturday.


Tom Roach and Ben Marsh are set to make their senior debuts for the Tigers.



Roach, the son of former Tigers great Michael Roach, will line-up on the wing while Marsh, a former Crows premiership ruckman, has been named as first ruck.

Jay Schulz and Kayne Pettifer also come into the team in place of the Matthew Richardson (hamstring), Greg Stafford (suspended) and Tim Fleming and David Rodan who've been omitted.

It's the first time that Rodan's been dropped since he made his senior debut in the opening round of 2002.

GEELONG v RICHMOND
Saturday, 7:10pm, Telstra Dome

GEELONG
B: Harley, Scarlett, Sanderson
HB: Rahilly, Mooney, Milburn
C: Chapman, Ling, Wojcinski
HF: Riccardi, Graham, Haynes
F: Gardiner, Playfair, Kingsley
FOLL: Chambers, Corey, Kelly
I/C: Tenace, Hunt, Johnson, Mackie
EMG: Bartel, Spriggs, Rooke
IN: Riccardi, Graham, Sanderson
OUT: Enright (wrist), Spriggs, Rooke

RICHMOND
B: Chaffey, A.Kellaway, Zantuck
HB: Newman, Gaspar, Johnson
C: Roach, Coughlan, Hartigan
HF: Bowden, Schulz, Fiora
F: Krakouer, Ottens, Morrison
FOLL: Marsh, Campbell, Brown
I/C: Hyde, Pettifer, Tivendale, Hall
EMG: Hilton, Weller, Fletcher
IN: Schulz, Marsh, Pettifer, Roach
OUT: Richardson (hamstring), Stafford (suspended), Rodan, Fleming
NEW: Thomas Roach (Carey Grammar/Oakleigh Chargers), Ben Marsh (Adelaide)

 

[rizzo]

NO THURLEY

 

[choc_a_holic]

GO CATS

I think we might have our first win

 

[GeeCat]

Cats and Tigers both claw at a win

Saturday, April 17
Geelong Advertiser - David Davutovic and AAP

Geelong's Peter Riccardi.


GEELONG and Richmond have put the final preparatory touches on tonight's clash at the Telstra Dome, in a match neither side can afford to lose.

The Cats have been strengthened with the return from injury of experienced trio Ben Graham, Peter Riccardi and Brenton Sanderson.

The three trained yesterday at Skilled Stadium, although Sanderson was the only one who didn't complete the 45-minute session, indicating an injury cloud still hangs over the acting captain.

Onballer Corey Enright made an appearance in the dugout with his left wrist wrapped in plaster after undergoing surgery on Tuesday. He is expected to miss up to six weeks.

Meanwhile Gary Ablett (groin) trained away from the main group, running light laps with injured pair David Loats (knee) and Steve Johnson (ankle).

He played one half in the VFL last week and will travel to Tasmania for tomorrow's clash at York Park.

Richmond needs to quickly rediscover the direct brand of football that brought it a crushing round-one win over Collingwood to end its losing streak at two.

The Tigers looked good when it kicked long and direct to Matthew Richardson in the opening-round victory over the Magpies.

Richardson is currently sidelined with a hamstring injury, but the need to drop the high-possession, sideways game of the last fortnight remains just as strong.

``It's been disappointing,'' Tigers coach Danny Frawley said.

``You can't buy confidence, it comes from within but we realise our best hasn't been anywhere near that over the last two weeks.

``We've got to have a good hard look at where we're at and how we played in round one and that's important, that we get back to that style, regardless of results.''

The issue was one of mental correction, rather than something that could be overcome during training, Frawley said.

``The players probably didn't realise they were slowing the ball down as much as they were last week until it was highlighted the day after the game.

``So obviously with the short break (after playing last Monday) it hasn't been one for the training track, it's been training their minds.

``I think we're a hell of a lot better than that so I'm looking forward to a different game tomorrow night.''

He said Richmond needed to ``go back to the basics''.

The Tigers have had several changes forced on them for a variety of reasons and have brought in two new recruits - Thomas Roach, son of Richmond goalkicking legend Michael Roach, and former Adelaide premiership ruckman Ben Marsh.

The loss of Richardson and the suspended Greg Stafford will be hard to cover.

Suddenly out-of-form David Rodan has been dropped for the first time in his career after playing 47 successive games since round one 2002

 

[Eriiin]

we won, we actually won.

 

[choc_a_holic]

GO CATS

 

[mellowyellow]

Top effort cats. A well deserved victory.

I hope the tigers playing graham back into some form didn't go unnoticed

 

[GeeCat]

Great effort by the boys. We still need to work on our disposal, which was still a bit inaccurate in some occassions, but I was pleased to see us grab the win. Some pleasing signs, especially from Graham and Riccardi, who seemingly have worked themselves back into form. Rooke, I thought was much better than in particular weeks, as was Wojcinski; who, credit to him, managed to play the game out and provide some great dash out of the defensive 50. Mackie, H and Tenace again showed alot. Very pleased with their developement. Gumby was again superb in his attack on the ball, whether up forward, in the ruck, or down back. Ling improved on his previous games and looks much more comfortable without the pressure of the captaincy. A great 1st win for the boys, but we must remember it was only against Richmond, and we shouldn't get too carried away with it.

 

[Unwritten_Law]

Originally posted by mellowyellow
I hope the tigers playing graham back into some form didn't go unnoticed

Heh

We'll have to wait until round 19 before we see another game like that

 

[you_idiot]

Originally posted by Eriiin
we won, we actually won.

Indeed, nice to see us take advantage of a team in the same manner that we've been taken advantage of the first three weeks.

Ben Graham was fantastic, and the return of him, Riccardi and Sanderson really lifted everyone around them.

Especially encouraged by the play of Haynes, Tenace and Mackie as well.

 

[Turbocat]

The game at the Dome or the shame at dome

Geelong won its first game at the dome last night against a side that would have been on par with the worst that I’ve seen for some time, playing a style that is at best a gutless, pretend brand of football. Don’t get carried Cat people because as any GFL side would make an AFL side look great Richmond ran the spac filler over the cracks in our side. I was there barraking hard , screaming at the lamentable “Jaffa Boys” as they endeavored to rip win of us yet again with what could only be described as jaw dropingly bad umpiring. In fact it was shameful at times! What the hell is a 7point play about? If that was the Pies or the Dons it would have been riot at the Dome. Fortunately not even these “Ogres in Orange” could make up for Richmond’s woeful effort.
That aside , the Geelong side had many good features.
Tenace will certainly be good and shows signs that he might yet be our best ever #1 draft pick
Mackie too showed some thing to work with but I’m still not convinced he will turn out to be an inspired first round pick , but we will see. He certainly nous which is more than some they have picked.
Haynes has already surpassed in 4 games what the “One Way” Street gave us in 5 years. This well look back at as a fantastic piece of drafting.
Hunt and Bomber Wojcinski give’s us more penatration from half back than Milburn and Enright. One thru speed across the grass and the other speed thru the air. If Hunt can continue to hit targets like that then we might yet get the 3-4 out BennG a week.
If Wojo could just be cleaner with his foot skills he would be electrifying and dangerous. He make’s such a big difference as is and I relish the thought that Tenace could be the player to do this in time.
Mooneys effort was great but really why do we have to cut off our nose to spite our ear. Bring in Blake to at least get his hand to the ball
Kingsly is good enough to be really annoying. The bloke looks like he is just hoping when kicking for goal but he does get into position well

Thompson keeps saying he wants them to take risks but the only risk they tend to take consistently is to run off. They still are very conscious of not losing possession. The first quarter was far too short most of the time and we must learn to kick long to advantage more often. I would love to see Thompson’s “ KPI’s”.
Next week will be interesting against the Dockers as well playing a side with talent.

 

[GeeCat]

The game at the Dome or the shame at dome

Geelong won its first game at the dome last night against a side that would have been on par with the worst that I’ve seen for some time, playing a style that is at best a gutless, pretend brand of football.

The same style that we played against St.Kilda and Carlton?

Mackie too showed some thing to work with but I’m still not convinced he will turn out to be an inspired first round pick , but we will see. He certainly nous which is more than some they have picked.

Wells himself has said it will take Mackie 2-3 years before he would be fighting for spot in the seniors. Think of what he has done thus far as a 'taste' of what's to come. If you look back at the 2002 draft, which was admittadly a weaker one, you will see that those taken after Mackie have themselves not yet set the footballing world on fire, Byron Schammer being the exception. If Geelong was not to pick Mackie, who were they to pick? Give the kid a few years time to prove you and any doubters wrong.

Hunt and Bomber Wojcinski give’s us more penatration from half back than Milburn and Enright. One thru speed across the grass and the other speed thru the air. If Hunt can continue to hit targets like that then we might yet get the 3-4 out BennG a week.

They may very well be better at rebounding but Milburn and Enright beat them hands down at aerial work and one-on-one contests. You need both sorts of defenders to run a successful defense

If Wojo could just be cleaner with his foot skills he would be electrifying and dangerous. He make’s such a big difference as is and I relish the thought that Tenace could be the player to do this in time.

Bomber was the cleanest I've seen in quite some time. The penetration he gained was superb, as was his delivery into the Forwad 50.

Mooneys effort was great but really why do we have to cut off our nose to spite our ear. Bring in Blake to at least get his hand to the ball

Cut our nose to spite our ear? Blake simply isn't ready for AFL. The ruck rotation of Gumby/H/Unco is holding up so there is no rush to bring in a kid like Blake in now.

 

[Turbocat]

Geecat, Fair suck of the whip, Fair crack of the sav, Fair point, a bit of a mixed metaphor , should have been cut your nose of to spite your eye!!!

Point 1 , I thought Richmond and Geelong both started out, trying to avoid loss, both teams were worse than ordinary. Then the Cats/Graham managed to bag a couple in the first they started to kick it longer more regularly whereas the tigers went shorter , didn’t tackle, played soft footy. Gutless because they failed to trust their forwards. So yes, when Geelong plays short they too play gutless and at times they seem to run out of puff and stop tackling but generally I don’t believe I can remember the Cats playing as bad as Richmond SatNight. Maybe they have, I just cant remember it of the top. Geelong should have beaten that side by 80 points. Tigers,absolutely pathetic.

Point2
No prob. It doesn’t at this time look like the 02 draft was particularly deep, you might even say that there was really only a few players worthy of being 1st rounders of the talent of previous years. How good is a real 1st rounder? My thinking is if a player is really worth a first round pick he will almost immediately be able to go into a clubs top 25. With the luxury of hind sight Gary Ablett was worth a first round pick. Who would I have picked then and who would I have picked looking back from now
I can remember at the time the top 3 were thought to be Goddard,Wells,Salopek we were at 7 and I was hoping for Brennan(gone), Walsh(gone),
Laycock/McIntosh(Av),Johnson(Ava),Gilham(Av).
You can see from my picks I would have gone for the best available big man. All of these guys were probably have jumped most of our young talls. How woud I have gone, would I have been any better. I don’t know but look at the clubs who went for these tall players.Laycock-Ess,McIntosh-Kang.,Johnson-WCoast,Gilham-PortA.All are have better lists than us so to judge that they have or have not played in there teams is not comparable to us but I bet Laycock would have already played more than 2 games for us
Looking back , your right Schammer looks good , Jarred Rivers at P26 looks better than most that were picked ahead of him. Johnson looked huge when I saw him play with WC pre season.
On the whole I’m not unhappy with Mackie on our list but I doubt he’ll ever be a KPP, therefore I’m hesitant, long term, about the worth of using our lowest pick since 1990 on him. I would be more patent if we had of picked a KPP player like Laycock /Johnson as I would perceive potential to progress. Mackie to me is almost like Caracella , a very handy fringe player. Icing on the cake. Too bad we haven’t got the cake

Point3
Id rather setup to get drive to kick goals and let Harley Mooney and Scarlett be the main spoilers. Wojo has a good jump. Id give up a few to get a few more but all would be Assessed on matchday. Accrording to the AFL recoredf Enright has 8 rebounds from 50 but doesn’t register on the marks.He being used to bring the ball out and he’s not the right player for it .To slow and not good enough by foot .”IMO”

Point4
Again no prob. We have missed his drive but id love to see him finish off kick a goal or put it lace out inside 50.The most important thing is the speed he brings it in with which is better than anyone else in the Hoops. He a definite starter in my team when fit.

Point5
Blake might not be ready but against the weaker teams I would have still played him. Give him a try Let him play 5 mins a quarter just see how he goes. The benefit of having a guy like King is he doesn’t get beaten to often so the other side doesn’t get a free ride. This year its been that15-30 mins of free ride that has killed us. When we have lost that nullifying effort in the guts we have lost any chance to win the first three games. At least with Mooney in the ruck we do get effort but id rather see him on our backline running out setting up. He can be a weapon. Chambers is a waste of space and we should be looking to yet again top up our rucks at the end of year.(That’s why in another post I asked the Question on the kid from the Falcons, John Meesen).They were hoping that Loats would improve our rucks but he’s a walking talking hospital bill. I wouldn’t rely on him playing any more than Mitchell White.

The beauty of opinion is it not right or wrong its only opinion. The good thing about this board is we get to express them.
GO CATS
TC