Down the rabbit hole they go: Geelong's AFL success and its difficult decisions

Two straight preliminary finals exits in the Patrick Dangerfield era, Geelong look set to have another in a series of busy-bee off seasons. Is it the right move? The real question is: do the Cats have a choice?

When all that matters is premierships, it is easy to lose perspective. Making it to the penultimate round of the season for two years running – and nine of the past ten seasons, mind – is really freaking good.

Fans should not feel too disheartened at their team’s performance this season. Yes, they fell short, but so will 17 other teams, and few have the Cats’ track record.

Geelong’s team building strategy is inexorably linked to their decision to bring Dangerfield home in the 2015 off season. Is another year of trading away the chance of youth for the surety of experience the right choice? The more appropriate question is: what choice do they have?

(Photo by James Elsby/AFL Media/Getty Images)

He can’t do it three times, can he?
One of the basic principles of considered analysis is when something looks too good to be true it almost surely is. When a player sets all kinds of records, stomps all over the competition, does things that aren’t supposed to be done, the working assumption must be that it is a one-off.

That was my theory for Dangerfield, who set a record for Brownlow votes in a single season, with 35 in 2016. His dominance was unique, a penchant for gaining territory and winning the ball in-close at a level no other player could approach. The theory didn’t hold.

On Monday night, Dangerfield’s 2017 was rewarded with a second straight 35-vote outcome in the Brownlow medal. His year was a different kind of great this time around; he shifted further to the inside of the play, and spent so much time forward he would have led the goal-kicking on ten of the other 17 teams.

Dangerfield was two disposals and three goals away from averaging 30 disposals and two goals per game over the course of this season (hat tip to The Roar’s Adrian Polykandrites for that one). That hadn’t been done since… ever, as far as I can tell. He was a singular offensive force, capable of running through the best midfielders and carving up the best defences.

The last two years were Dangerfield’s notional 25-year-old and 26-year-old seasons – his birthday is in early April, a week after the season starts – and his ninth and tenth years in the league. He is the now in the top quartile of players for age at Geelong, following the retirements of Andrew Mackie and Tom Lonergan.

He can’t do it again, can he? Maybe, but surely each all-time performance brings him closer to the season where he comes back to earth. The point is, Geelong has a defined window where Dangerfield will be in his prime and smashing planets, and they must make the most of it, as any club should.

Leaning on the top
This is a critical issue, because of the role Dangerfield plays in the way the team goes about its business. If AFL football is a system-driven league, and it is, then Geelong is the avatar for the game.

Head coach Chris Scott has one of the most defined playing styles in the league, centred on creating aerial turnovers out wide, keeping possession of the ball, and hitting teams between the eyes when the play turns congested.

More often than not in 2017, Geelong turned to the latter in their effort to win – and paper up some cracks in their playing list, which could be exposed by teams with excellent skills or ball winners.

The Cats put this system into overdrive against their highly rated opponents this season, beating the Crows, Swans and Giants with 20-plus contested possession differentials throughout the season. In their wins, Geelong averaged a ground ball differential (which I calculate by removing contested marks and free kicks from contested possessions) of +18.1 per game – the best in the league. In losses, that only dropped to -0.8 per game – the third highest in the league.

It was a clear point of emphasis, highlighted by the way Scott used some of his players throughout the season. Once he overcame injury, Scott Selwood played as a traditional midfield tagger, recording 150 tackles over a 14 game season.

To underscore how insane that is, the younger Selwood was seventh in the league for tackles, despite playing two-thirds of the season; had he played every game, Selwood would have laid 257 tackles, 55 more than the record he set for West Coast in 2011.

Mark Blicavs and Sam Menegola were trained on targets at times this year too.

This was all to create a runway for Geelong’s attacking midfielders to go to work: Dangerfield, Joel Selwood, Mitch Duncan and to an extent Cam Guthrie when he ran through the middle. Knowing his team’s limitations, Scott built a scheme that meant the strongest players could be at their most influential, and the weaker could play a role that would help the team.

The Cats do certainly lean on their top tier – who wouldn’t when it includes Dangerfield, Selwood, key forward Tom Hawkins (who kicked 50 goals for the second year in a row, one of only four players to be on that streak right now), and key defender-turned-utility Harry Taylor. Let’s throw Duncan into that mix too, the unassuming wingman grew into a larger role this year and should have been an All Australian.

(AAP Image/Joe Castro)

It is scheme, but it’s also because the Cats have some challenges with list depth – no doubt influenced by the recruitment decision of years immediately passed. Jed Bews, George Horlin-Smith, Darcy Lang, Jordan Murdoch and Rhys Stanley were called upon to varying degrees this year, and none look all that convincing.

Under the radar, debuts were handed to eight players, including Tom Stewart, James Parsons and Brandan Parfitt, who made positions in the team their own. None came with blue-chip credentials – Stewart had a solid reference from Matthew Scarlett – but have shown their wares. Recent draftee Jake Kolodjashnij looked more assured as the season went on, too.

It is really that middle tier, above the rookies and draftees but below the established talent, that looks weak. But as we’ve discussed, Scott makes it all work with clever scheme.

This year, it manifested in some gummy as hell games, but it was effective enough for the Cats to finish second on the ladder and make it to the penultimate week of the season once again. This year was also a marked difference to 2016, when the Cats used heft and size in the air to command that facet of the game, and worry more about territory than winning the one on ones.

In 2016, the Cats recorded a season-long inside-50 differential of +11.6, and took 6.4 more contested marks than their opponents. Compare that to this year’s numbers: +4.5 and +3.3. The shift is clear.

What’s the third stage of this evolution? We’re getting some early insights, based on who the Cats are rumoured – or factually confirmed – to be chasing.

(Photo by Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images)

Evolution, not revolution
Gary Ablett is coming home. This was confirmed yesterday, when the Gold Coast Suns issued a press release – they’re expert at this – announcing their inaugural captain had requested a trade to Geelong.

Ablett’s manager was next up, declaring the trade-or-retire threat of last year was still a live option. Finally, the Cats responded with forced surprise at the news.

It’s going to happen, the question is the price.

Assessing this deal is complicated. Ablett will turn 34 before the season hits the one-third mark. He’s now played 34 games in three seasons since injuring his shoulder in 2014, his career prognosis looking more negative by the week.

He might have one full season’s worth of play left in him, meaning the Suns aren’t exactly giving up the hottest prospect in the game.

But what are those 22(ish) games worth to the Cats? Put aside sentiment for a minute – Geelong would not entertain this if it was all about sentiment – Ablett remains one of the most influential accumulators in the competition when he’s fit. Despite his choppy year, he polled 14 Brownlow votes in 14 games, averaging 33 disposals, 7.6 clearances and 18 uncontested possessions. Those 22 games could be worth plenty.

Then there’s the finances; Ablett is chewing up some of Gold Coast’s cap space, but who are they going to pay if it’s made available? And the fact the Suns are being effectively run by AFL House. And the fact that Ablett seems, from his public statements, to be serious about his ambivalence toward retirement.

Both sides are walking a tightrope, and they know it. There’s plenty of water to pass under the bridge, although we can categorically say today that the Suns are not getting Duncan and Nakia Cockatoo – their reported first request. Can’t fault them for having a dip.

That Geelong are looking at Ablett in this way suggests another busy trade period of bolt-on additions to a core group of players aged 24 to 30. In the past two years, Geelong has traded in Dangerfield, Lachie Henderson, Zac Smith, Aaron Black and Zach Tuohy, and gained Scott Selwood as a free agent. All but one of these players – Black, the poor bastard – would be considered central to the way Geelong go about their business.

(Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

It created some pressures last season. When the Cats traded Josh Caddy to Richmond, the working assumption among the football nerdery was Geelong needed the salary cap space to fit in Brett Deledio (or Ablett, as it were). Add to that the moves to cull Shane Kersten (pick 63) and Nathan Vardy (pick 72), and the very public retirement of Jimmy Bartel. When nothing ultimately came to pass, it looked like a bit of a mess.

This time around, the Cats’ departure lounge looks far more content. Thus far, veterans Andrew Mackie and Tom Lonergan have been the lone two leavers, leaving four more names to come off the list before the end of October.

With Ablett, Geelong has also been linked to Greater Western Sydney’s Devon Smith and the Western Bulldogs’ Jake Stringer. The trio are all known almost exclusively for their work in helping their team score, rather than to stop the opposition. The imperative is clear: Geelong needs to get their narrow set of attacking threats some help.

It’s unclear how the Cats could land both Smith and Stringer – indeed they probably won’t. Geelong cannot trade their 2018 first round pick (I think, the league’s rules around this are a farce), as they have dealt out of the first round for the previous two years and have also done so this season. The Cats currently enter the draft at pick 20 (Carlton’s second-round choice), and do so again at pick 33. Then Geelong’s hand unfolds naturally.

The Giants could be satiated with pick 20 for Smith, although his price looks to have surged in recent weeks after a reported ‘heap’ of Victorian clubs registered their interest. That’s a bidding war the Cats are unlikely to be in a position to win.

The Dogs are likely to seek more than pick 20 for Stringer, too. While his stock is at a low ebb, Stringer is entering his 23-year-old season having been named All Australian in 2015, after kicking 56 goals and directly assisting 19 more. The Bullies have made noises that they’d keep him and work through whatever issues he and the club currently have should a satisfactory deal not present itself, and other clubs have been keen to indicate their interest.

All three of Ablett, Smith and Stringer would fit in nicely with Geelong’s existing set up. Out go some of the unconvincing names listed previously, a few changes to the whiteboard (such as Harry Taylor moving back full time now Lonergan and Mackie have retired), and suddenly Geelong has the pieces to evolve into a super potent attacking threat.

The Cats’ forward nine or ten rotation could rival the best in the league, and they could exhibit a midfield-forward flexibility unlike any team can attest. For example, imagine Dangerfield and Stringer lurking in the same forward 50 as a one-out pairing. My brain just exploded. How do you counter that?

(Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

But here’s the rub. How can Geelong pull it all off? Without draft capital, they will need to dip into their pool of young players, already thin as a result of deals past and some patchy drafting (which is more to do with luck than most would have you believe).

That serves to further their plans for 2018 and 2019, but what about beyond that, as Dangerfield, Selwood, Taylor, Hawkins and others move into their twilight years?

Is chasing success right here, right now, the right move for Geelong? Almost certainly. The past two years have shown they have the foundations firmly in place for a sustained run at a premiership. Scott will tweak, as he always does, and some new, established talent will help to no end. The Cats will be back.

However, there is a more fundamental question at play, which may give fans some pause for thought if this time next year we are again discussing where to from here. Given the events set in motion by the Patrick Dangerfield transaction, what choice does Geelong have but to go deeper down the rabbit hole?