On Friday night, the Cats face the Swans at the MCG in a do-or-die semi-final, where we’ll witness the Geelong wave that has been building since 2011 finally come crashing down in a furious, chaotic mess, leaving many naive or unsuspecting fans dumped and gasping for air.
A wave is made up of a constant series of circular motions; when that motion is broken, the wave breaks – and the Geelong Football Club has been in a constant state of circular motion since 2011, making the same decisions over and over, leading to the same poor and predictable outcomes.
List management strategy has been clearly designed to keep them in the finals at the expense of drafting young, elite talent. It has also placed far too much emphasis on creating a team for a Kardinia Park-centric gamestyle, using mature-age recruits – many of whom simply have not performed – to fill in potholes.
It began with Hamish McIntosh, continued with Mitch Clark, and continues now with Rhys Stanley. Tom Stewart got found out last Friday night in his first final, Sam Menegola again failed to perform on the big stage, and once you add to that the overrated Mark Blicavs, who’s scarcely played one decent final in his life, it becomes clear how poor the list management decision making really has been.
Would kids picked up in the 2012, 2013 or 2014 drafts be fairing any worse than those listed above? Why do the Cats continue to persist with such players and such a strategy when it clearly fails in finals?
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The circular motion continued with the re-signing of Chris Scott by Brian Cook, who when re-signed had won just two finals of his last eight, had won once after a bye in six years, and had persisted with fielding tall, slow teams when it had become abundantly clear that speed and dynamism are key ingredients for success.
In the qualifying final against Richmond, Scott coached his team after a bye and was canned for playing a slow, tall team, dropping dynamic, midsize scoring ace Dan Menzel.
Geelong were yet again obliterated in a final, beaten after a bye, and run off their feet.
Meanwhile, in the background over the last few years, supporters’ fury has grown at Cook and Scott failing to even answer questions about our poor finals performances.
More and more some fans could see the wave growing, the circles repeating themselves again and again with increasing menace.
However, as Cook rattled off Scott’s impressive season-winning record of over 70 per cent, the media would lap it up – Geelong consistently being labelled a ‘successful team’ despite not even being in the top eight teams in the competition for finals wins in that time.
AAP Image/Dave Hunt
In last week’s qualifying final, Geelong had their lowest score in a final since 1903, losing to a team that hadn’t won a final since 2001, and that the Cats had beaten 21 of the previous 22 times they’d played.
It took Scott’s finals coaching record to two wins from nine finals over the last six years.
Last Friday night, the quiet bulge on the horizon suddenly rose, casting a tremendous, foreboding shadow over those in its path. The lip of Cook and Scott’s wave hangs in the air, waiting to crash down.
On Friday night, Geelong’s wave will brutally smash, leaving Scott, Cook and the complacency of an underperforming club strewn in its wake.
There need to be big changes at Geelong – let’s hope, as Cats fans, it begins on Friday night.
Peter T
Guest
Played for Melbourne then Brisbane. Had a shaggy beard. First name Travis
bryan
Guest
Oh, the wave broke, all right, but it was a Tsunami, which washed the hapless Swannies out of the Finals! By the way, I'm not a Cats supporter.
Don Freo
Guest
I can't remember Johnstone. Remind me.
Cat
Roar Guru
None of the teams the Cats need to beat this year are anywhere near the class those Cats sides had to beat either.
BigAl
Guest
I think the wave will break next week ! Despite the win there is no doubt The Cats are nowhere near the team they were with Ablett, Selwood, Enright, Johnstone... flying !
Deano
Guest
How wrong was this article!!? Oh well, there's still time for another wave, maybe next week against the crows, maybe it was a delayed wave? you can still reconfigure a wave into your narrative with their next loss?
misha sibirsk
Guest
Although as I mentioned briefly yesterday (library computer - 2 mins remaining), I haven't enjoyed the switch at Geelong over the last few years from player development to moneyball - panning for gold via trading players. Nevertheless, I acknowledge that not all is doom and gloom. Although a lot of ruckman, for example, starting with the bizarrely malighned Mark Blake, have been sacrificed on the altar of new and flimsy theories about the changing role of the ruckman, theories that have just about run their course, all that panning and turning over has in the end yielded Zac Smith (wrong spelling?), clearly the best incumbent since King and Ottens. Again, my list management philosophy would have focussed this year on a combination of Thurlow, Bews and Ruggles to fill the non-tall defender gap left by Enright. However, Tuohy and Stewart, the new-old boys, have been the best performed, although Stewart was cited as a failure in the article. Another one unresonably dissed in the article was Menegola, a remarkable nugget from off the scrap heap. Had nearly his weakest game against the Tiges, but I'm not yet going to say he's categorically a non-finals, non-MCG player. Vaguely recall, late last year vs Tigers at MCG, one of Geelong's best. Another, Blicavs, high-teens disposals as a mid: subpar? Perhaps, if you forget that he pinch hits in the ruck and is one of the Cats' best midfield defenders (in the Footy Record for that Tigers clash last year, he was listed as Geelong's most prolific tackler - Scott Selwood would probably have taken that mantle this year). BTW, Scott Selwood - another mature-age draftee, has really shown some value, and was one of the few who stood up last week. Some of the trades have been unequivocally bad. Last week we got the exclamation mark on how bad the Caddy trrade was. If Geelong is looking a bit slow and big, remember that some of the smaller, faster felines have been on the sidelines for months. Great to see Lang back - a potential, near-future great, I would say. Finally, while it's true that Geelong's finals performances in recent years have lagged behind their home-and-away form, firstly, in the finals, you're playing the best opposition every game, and secondly, the balance between finals and home-and-away is not a zero sum game. There are plenty of teams who don't have to worry about finals losing form, because they wallow in the bottom four or five for many years at a stretch. My emergence into football consciousness was in the early seventies, I realized then and in succeeding decades that there are about six rungs of competitiveness between premiership favourite and cellar dweller. Having a hissy because you've spent a few years one rung away from the top, and throwing out the coaching panel with the list management water, doesn't guarantee you go one rung up or even fall just one rung down. You can go to the bottom and stay there. Remember when Carlton diecided it deserved to be in premiership contention NOW? Dumped Ratten - stunningly stupid and arrogant decision; and they're still trying to get back on their feet - marvellous to behold. I didn't expect Geelong to be ready to challenge this year. Perhaps they still aren't, but they've done better than I expected. Got a few positives bubbling away. I'm optimistic for the next couple of years.
Don Freo
Guest
What's your version of "failure"? First final, 23 disposals at 73%....No failure there. Now the Prelim he got the ball 17 times but that was only 52%. That's one ordinary game only but hardly an Andrew Mackie, Harry Taylor kind of fail. Why not target them? Do you like them too much? Menegola only played 8 games last year averaging 24 disposals. This year he has done even better.
Ronaldo
Guest
The 'old team' was responsible for our finals performances up to 2014 but I'm concerned at last year and this year's efforts with the change of guard. Just brushed aside by the Swans and the Tigers when it mattered. Astounding selection decisions, arrogant coaching attitudes and a game plan that clearly doesn't work when the pressure is on - even the poorly Pies were too good when they brought pressure to the table. How we haven't been working on ways to counter that all season is beyond me, but Friday night showed we hadn't done a lot of work. Whilst I fully agree with the list management strategy review, and note that the team is full of outside runners - a type of player who traditionally don't perform in finals - of more concern was Brian Cook's attitude last summer. Suggesting he 'couldn't understand' why members would be upset means he isn't listening to his membership base. We are allowed to be critical, we are allowed to ask questions and seek answers - everyone only has the best interests of the club at heart and we are entitled to know that the club is at least performing a review. .
Alphingtonian
Roar Pro
He's played 3 finals and failed in them all.
andyl12
Guest
http://www.hawthornfc.com.au/news/2017-09-14/otd-hawks-sink-cats-in-thriller In case anyone wants to relive it.
Don Freo
Guest
That's silly and just been answered. That line of argument has been exposed. You mention him in the context of "again".
Alphingtonian
Roar Pro
Don't worry, we haven't, and we won't, with this strategy.
Alphingtonian
Roar Pro
Name one final he's performed in?
Nev
Guest
...woooosh...
Nev
Guest
Been in a good paddock since too
Eddy Jay
Guest
"First world problem" says the man typing up his hyperbole on a computer connected to the internet on a broadband connection... probably sipping on a latte as well.
Camo McD
Roar Guru
He had some talent but if his name wasn't Gary Ablett from my recollection he certainly wouldn't have been taken as a high draft pick if at all.
Mike
Guest
Scott has devised a game plan that works reasonably well during the regular season but is totally inept when the finals come around. It relies on a defensive zone that can be implemented on smaller/narrower grounds but is as loose as a goose on bigger/wider grounds. Players are taught to zone off their opponent and guard a patch of space rather than man up. In finals the intensity goes up and teams often play man on man contested footy. Geelong does not practice that style of football and hence get smacked in finals by teams like Sydney that play hard nosed contested football. The other problem Geelong has is its bottom 5 or 6 players. They are simply not up to AFL standard. Parsons, Zach Guthrie, Bews, Parfaitt are all just kids earning the game, some of them look like a strong wind would blow them over. Parfaitt is the only one with any real talent. Others such as Murdoch, Cameron Guthrie just are not effective or consistent. We gave up a lot of first and second round draft picks chasing older players, some of them cast offs, and now we are paying the price.
Birdman
Guest
yeah Jars had a stinker in that final but he was a total champ for both the Hawks and the Crows. Amazing player with the full set of tools - outrageously talented.