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The Geelong Cats have taken a 25-point win over a spirited Western Bulldogs side on Friday night.
» Click here for the full match report.
Final score
Geelong 16.7.103
Western Bulldogs 11.12.78
It’s raining Cats and Dogs at Simonds Stadium when Geelong and the Western Bulldogs meet there on Friday night. Join The Roar for live scores from the match, and a live blog of the game, starting from 7:50pm (AEST).
» Wondering what’s happening in the NRL? Follow our Bulldogs vs Dragons live blog
To start with – immediate apology for making that joke in the opening line, I couldn’t help myself. Moving on, this looks like a really interesting match-up.
On one hand you’ve got the Cats who last week ended Adelaide’s run of eight straight wins, at this very same ground. That sounds like pretty good form, but they were having some trouble before that – like just about every other team in the top eight, their form has been rising and falling all year long.
They’re very tough to beat at this ground. They lost to Sydney here earlier in the year but otherwise have been unbeaten on their home turf.
Last week they made the interesting call of dropping Zac Smith as a late out before the game – not out of any injury or illness, but simply ‘managing’ him, in what seemed like a horses-for-courses approach.
Now they’ve brought Smith back in but it’s at the expense of Shane Kersten, despite Kersten kicking an impressive 21 goals from 15 games this year. This a team that, even with just five rounds left in the season, still doesn’t know what its best structure is regarding its wealth of tall players.
On the other hand we’ve got the Bulldogs. They’re a good team, a better team than I thought possible two years ago, but they are down on their luck at the moment having been whacked hard with the injury stick. In addition to losing Mitch Wallis and Jack Redpath last week, they’re also down Matthew Boyd and Matthew Suckling, both with Achilles issues, and Dale Morris with a hamstring.
The upside of that is that they’re getting Luke Dahlhaus back in, as well as Jake Stringer. Also into the team this week are Jed Adcock, Zaine Cordy, and former Cat Joel Hamling.
Prediction
Logically speaking the Cats look the likely winners. However, the results of matches like this have upset my tipping so many times this year that I’m now using reverse logic. It’s probably a really bad idea.
Western Bulldogs by 18 points.
Oh, and some love needs to be given to the milestone men tonight too – Jimmy Bartel playing his 300th game, Corey Enright his 326th – set to become the Cats’ games record holder – as well as Easton Wood, who will play his 100th.
Join The Roar for live scores from the match, and a live blog of the game, starting from 7:50pm (AEST).