What’s the best way to breathe fire and life into your veteran players? Recruit a dragon.
In the NFL, Aaron Rodgers is ‘The Dragon’. He is hellfire to opposition defences, a mixture of force and precision that cuts teams up and then mercilessly buries them. He is flames incarnate.
Patrick Dangerfield is Australian football’s answer to Rodgers. He is the AFL’s dragon. Last Saturday night he destroyed the Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium just as he did the Kangaroos at the same venue the week prior.
He accelerated past opponents, or just ran right through them. By the time he kicked that goal in the final quarter, all he could do was turn to the crowd and raise his arms with an expressionless face, as if stunned, but also cognisant, of his own greatness. It was Michael Jordan’s shrug and it was magnificent.
Dangerfield’s individual brilliance has been well covered, and is self-evident, but the ripple down effect on his team has been even more significant.
The Cats weren’t good last year. They were the worst clearance side in the league, well below average in contested possessions, and mediocre in inside 50 differential. Their record flattered them, and their record wasn’t very good.
Remarkably, Geelong had become something of a one-man team, and their one man was fading. Joel Selwood didn’t look like himself last year, slipping from the ranks of the truly elite, seemingly weighed down by the load of carrying an entire midfield.
The future didn’t seem especially bright. The Cats had exciting young pieces, but they seemed to be on a different timeline to the team’s premiership veterans. Jimmy Bartel and Corey Enright looked to be pondering retirement, Tom Lonergan and Andrew Mackie were into their 30s, and Harry Taylor was about to join them. Geelong were about to start a rebuild – it was as necessary as it was justifiable. They had certainly built up enough equity for their fans to understand it.
And then Dangerfield came home, and everything changed.
After playing a less dramatic version of Gary Ablett Jr on the Gold Coast, Joel Selwood no longer had to shoulder the responsibility of an entire unit – he was now the wingman to one of the game’s five best players.
Alongside Dangerfield, Selwood has been invigorated. Last year he looked an old 27, and one suspected he wouldn’t age well with his unforgiving battering ram Dwyane-Wade-furiously-attacking-the-rim-every-single-play style. But then LeBron James showed up, and now Selwood is having his best statistical season since 2010. He’s running on top of the ground again, exploding from packs like peak Daniel Kerr running downhill, but with even more force and conviction. He and Dangerfield are the game’s best midfield tandem and it’s not close.
With the premiership window unexpectedly re-opened, Jimmy Bartel, Corey Enright, Harry Taylor and Tom Lonergan have real purpose again. The Cats might have two of the best ten players in the league in Dangerfield and Selwood, but Bartel is still the one with the Brownlow. He’s not the 2007 or 2011 version of himself that took home medals anymore, but he’s still dynamic, still capable of clowning dudes as he did with his sumptuous side-stepping goal against North Melbourne a fortnight ago.
Like Keanu Reeves, Enright does not appear to age. He is a glitch in The Matrix. For the past 11 seasons, he’s averaged between 21 and 25 disposals. On the weekend, it looked like someone had clumsily spliced footage of 2006 Enright into the game against the Bulldogs. There he was, intercepting marks, preternaturally reading the play, pulling the passing strings out of defence like Boris the Puppetmaster. He may never die.
Taylor, Lonergan and Andrew Mackie had too much responsibility last season, but this year they’ve coalesced perfectly into a cohesive defence where it seems like every player is capable of taking an intercept mark.
The Dangerfield effect has also spread to the younger stars. After being forced into the roles of second and third bananas, Mitch Duncan and Cam Guthrie have slid to third and fourth, their growth accelerated by the contagious genius of Dangerfield.
The scary things about these Cats is that they have so many individual talents capable of taking over a game at any moment. They’re like the 2008 Boston Celtics – if Paul Pierce didn’t have it one night, then Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett or Rajon Rondo surely would, and that would be enough.
In the first quarter against the Dogs it was Enright and Daniel Menzel controlling the game. By the end of the first half Selwood had taken over, and by the game’s conclusion Dangerfield had emerged as the clear standout. Steven Motlop was perpetually up to stuff, and Tom Hawkins’ presence always loomed large. The Cats have so many avenues to greatness – more than anyone else.
Geelong schooled the Dogs last Saturday night. In the first half it was embarrassing. Where the Dogs were hesitant and clueless, the Cats connected in a string of logic. Everything made sense, and everything worked. They looked like the best team in the league.
None of this happens without Dangerfield – without his individual impact and without the new life it’s provided his teammates, lost last year, rediscovering themselves this year.
Dangerfield’s effect is the strongest argument we’ve seen in favour of free agency. His arrival, combined with the important structural additions of Lachlan Henderson and Zac Smith, has brought Geelong back to relevance. It means that we’ll see champions like Selwood and Bartel on the September stage again, in the most meaningful moments where their stars can shine the brightest. And Dangerfield’s former team has hardly suffered in his absence.
This Cats dynasty was supposed to be dead. Last year was the death knell, and Hawthorn had supplanted them as the era’s dominant team. The Hawks still lead the premiership count 4-3, but this year, with the Hawks flailing a little and the Cats invigorated by their unexpected tenth life, in the tenth year of their dynasty, Geelong will like its chances to square the ledger.
We’re taking a look at one player from each team that needs to make a difference this week, starting with the ANZAC Day games.
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