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The Collingwood Magpies and Geelong Cats meet at the MCG on Saturday night. Join The Roar for live scores and coverage from 7:40pm (AEDT).
Historically this fixture has produced some amazing games. The corresponding fixture last year gave us a six-point thriller. Collingwood took the chocolates on that occasion.
Geelong:
It seems that over the past few seasons, every time the so-called experts do their preseason ladder predictions, Geelong is a side that is tipped to slide due to an ageing list. Yet every season the Cats prove them wrong, continuing to not only make the top eight, but making a big impact in September.
This season the Cats have already continued their well trodden plan of blooding young players before most believe they would be ready, and so far it has worked. It helps when you have some of the absolute stars of the competition to guide them, but the Cats have been able to stabilise and continually improve their list while other clubs have fallen away.
Despite going into this game with several key players out injured or suspended Geelong will still field a very strong 22 with very few weaknesses.
Collingwood:
After a stunning come from behind win like the Magpies just had, you’d think everything would be looking up at the most famous club in Australia, but yet again injuries have reared their ugly head.
The most prominent of course is Nathan Brown’s shoulder injury, which at one stage looked like keeping him out for most of this season. Now the prognosis isn’t that bad, with 4-5 weeks the reported length of his absence.
His injury was a blow to an already depleted Pies defence and then came the news that just about the only remaining fit small defender, Ben Sinclair, had suffered a hamstring injury and would miss the next 2-3 weeks as well.
It doesn’t leave too many defensive options for coach Nathan Buckley with Lachie Keeffe the obvious replacement for Brown, but not much after that.
Of course there’s Goldsack or Lumumba who can play a defensive role but that robs the Magpies of the option of using them in more attacking positions. It’s a headache indeed.
Prediction:
Geelong has shown more than Collingwood in its first two games to suggest they can go 3-0.
The Pies though, clearly match-up well against Chris Scott’s side, and they will make Geelong earn it with plenty of pressure on the ball carrier.
Whoever performs better in the midfield battle obviously puts their side in a winning position. Expect Swan to be ready to bounce back after an uncharacteristic performance in Sydney.
Geelong though, has the better of the defences – especially after the Pies lost Nathan Brown to injury – and should still prevail, albeit in a close one.
Cats by 20 points.
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