Geelong is 2018’s most intriguing AFL premiership contender

Of all of last year’s preliminary finalists, Geelong – the team that has won more than any other over the past two years – have been given the least respect heading into 2018.

The Cats won 32 of their 44 home-and-away season games over the past two years, and drew another.

It’s a close run thing, but that is more than Adelaide (31-1-12), Sydney (31-0-13) and Greater Western Sydney (30-2-12) – the quartet the clear outstanding regular-season teams of the past two years.

Geelong are one of two teams to make it to the penultimate round of the season in both years – the other being GWS – a bad first quarter killing their chances on both occasions.

Their football style has been as transparent as it has been ruthless and effective; big bodies at contests in the air and on the ground, a hard press around the centre, and a top-heavy midfield able to stomp its way across the competition. Having Patrick Dangerfield helps, but it is broader than he, Joel Selwood, Tom Hawkins and the other guys at the top of the depth chart; it’s a team-wide strategy.

The Cats’ combined tackle rate (it’s early in the season: tackle rate is tackles per 50 minutes of opposition possession – combined is the total both for and against for a team) was 152.1, the best in the league. They were third in the league for adjusted contested possession differential (+5.9 per game), and first for contested mark differential (+3.3 per game).

The team had a real handball tendency (186.4 per game, ranked fourth, and a kick to handball ratio of 1.06), a big shift from the team’s 2016 preferences (165.1 per game, ranked eighth, and a kick to handball ratio of 1.23). Like all quality products, they trade on their brand.

Last year’s handball infusion was a tweak on the scheme that emerged in the first year of the Dangerfield era. It was designed to bring Geelong into line with the premiership-winning Western Bulldogs – the whole competition moved the ball by hand a little more readily in 2017. It is clear from the results it was effective. But success is measured in premierships.

Fortunately, the Cats have a golden opportunity to change things up with a different personnel group. These changes could be the final piece in their premiership puzzle.

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Structural change
A big part of Geelong’s scheme was the players on the field executing it. The club announced its intentions loud and clear in the 2016 preseason with a back-page spread of their 15 tall to very tall players, standing arms crossed and looking, well, large.

At the time it looked interesting but risky: it’s not unusual for teams to have a bunch of tall players, but it is unusual for so many of them to play week in, week out.

The competition shifted underneath the Cats. Where they went for heft and size, others went for agility and pace. Many went for the opposite of height – including the last two premiers – playing smaller players in the midfield and up forward. Last season, Geelong rolled out the tallest game day line ups in the league, with an average height of 189.8 centimetres. That was 2.4 centimetres taller than the average, and 3.4 centimetres taller than the shortest team: Richmond. It doesn’t sound like much, but compound that over 22 players.

Few teams were as qualitatively tall as the Cats, too. The third-man-up rule-change killed Mark Blicavs’ competitive advantage, thrusting him into the midfield with predictable results. Zac Smith took the number one ruck mantle, yet Rhys Stanley played nine of his 13 games with Smith in the line up. Harry Taylor, one of the better intercepting defenders in the game, played most of the season as a forward due to a surplus of tall defenders and dearth of forward marking options.

To say this is the root of the team’s problems isn’t fair – after all, there aren’t a lot of problems – but this feature is at the centre of the positive changes we are likely to see.

The retirements of Andrew Mackie and Tom Lonergan are an enormous structural fillip. While both had been reliable defenders for a decade (or more in the case of Mackie), their presence in the back half limited what happened across the rest of the ground. Taylor was seen as the answer for the Cats up forward since they could afford to pinch him from the back half, because Mackie and Lonergan were a stable presence around Lachie Henderson and Jake Kolodjashnij. Taylor kicked five goals twice and four goals once; he was held goalless as a forward far more frequently.

He will now spend the year as the team’s full back. Henderson can fulfil his destiny as a proper centre half back, rolling off a lumbering tall forward and helping in the air. Kolodjashnij is the third tall defender, pushing up the ground on counter attacks. The trio will be flanked by Zach Tuohy and the emergent Tom Stewart; five of the back six spots are filled without much fuss.

There are likely to be many candidates for the sixth spot, but given this is generally an attacking option in today’s meta-game this is not a significant concern. Steven Motlop roamed the half back line in the latter stage of last year to great effect, but he’s not there anymore. Cam Guthrie can also play the position, but might be needed further up the ground. In any case, Geelong’s back six looks sound.

Steven Motlop (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

Get small
Taylor was drafted to a forward line desperate for answers. Outside of Tom Hawkins and Daniel Menzel, the Cats have struggled to find a forward group able to reliably capitalise on performances further up the ground.

A common critique was their apparent aversion to small forwards, which isn’t quite right.

Injuries crippled that column of the depth chart, leaving the Cats with few options. Lincoln McCarthy (177 centimetres) played three games before succumbing to a foot injury. Nakia Cockatoo (a small 185 centimetres) only made it out for five games. Corey Gregson (175 centimetres) didn’t play at all.

Geelong turned to first year Brandan Parfitt (179 centimetres), who impressed in his 15 games albeit not hitting the scoreboard with much consistency. They also went small over the past two drafts, picking Lachlan Fogarty (179 centimetres) and Gryan Miers (178 centimetres) in November last year.

That’s a deep battery of small forward options, which has the potential to revolutionise Geelong’s method and rejuvenate their entire forward half of the ground. Recent reports suggest Cockatoo, Gregson and McCarthy have started the year in sound health, and are set to be available for much if not all of the season.

Chris Scott has shown his penchant for modifying his team’s game to keep up with trends in the league. At a risk of labouring the point, small ball is one of the AFL’s megatrends, and runs completely counter to the means and ways the Cats have gone about their football over the past two seasons. Given Taylor’s likely shift to the backline, a revamp of the forward structure will surely be forthcoming.

The Cats already have a penchant for high-pressure football, just not at the forward end of the ground. It represents a clear opportunity for change, and improvement.

Nakia Cockatoo (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Media/Getty Images)

Home-ground advantage
The tall-or-bust strategy was all about Geelong’s actual home-ground advantage: the narrow Kardinia Park, where the path to traverse from one end of the ground to the other is much tighter than the average. It makes defending the ground with height and strength an important consideration, and one which the Cats leant on.

Over the past two home-and-away seasons, Geelong has conceded 72.3 points per game at Kardinia Park – second only to GWS’s 63.3 points per game at Manuka Oval among home grounds where a team has played five or more games. By contrast, the Cats have conceded 92.7 points per game in their three home games at the MCG, and 79 points per game at Docklands. Quality of opposition may play a role here, but the difference is stark.

This is important, because Geelong have secured a total of nine games at their actual home ground this season – one more than in recent times. The Cats play fellow top-four aspirants Sydney and GWS, as well as top-eight contenders Melbourne and St Kilda, in their comfortable surrounds. The other five are against last year’s bottom six: Carlton, North Melbourne, Fremantle, Brisbane and Gold Coast.

It means they have a steady diet of difficult away dates, including away trips to West Coast, Port Adelaide, Sydney and Adelaide. Theirs is the fixture of a team that has finished in the top four, and made it to the penultimate weekend of the season, for two years running.

Around all this is a fascinating little wrinkle: Geelong will play seven games at the home of football, and home of finals football in Victoria, the MCG in 2018. The last time the Cats strode out on the MCG seven times in the season regular was in 2010. Should they make the final eight, or the top four, the Cats face the prospect of playing at the ‘G up to 11 times in 2018 – needing to win the last two of them at least.

This presents Scott and his brains trust with a challenge: how can we play football that suits both the narrowness of our home ground, and wide expanses of our home-away-from-home ground?

Cats coach Chris Scott (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)

A strong starting point
These kind of questions are important, but shouldn’t distract from the most significant reason for Geelong optimism: the core midfield. The Cats have possessed two of the best ten or so midfielders in the game since Dangerfield’s arrival in the 2015 offseason, the man himself and captain Selwood.

Last year’s Mitch Duncan emergence – criminally obscured by his All Australian squad snub – gave the Cats a centre square group rivalling any in the game. Hell, it might’ve been the best.

Selwood’s long run of availability came to an end with a serious ankle injury in Round 20. After patch-up surgery, Selwood returned for the finals series, only for his temporary solution to give way in the closing stages of Geelong’s preliminary final loss to Adelaide. By all reports his ankle has healed nicely and he will be fine to resume playing.

Dangerfield and Duncan have not missed a game due to injury over the past two seasons (both have missed due to suspension). The trio represent the top end of a midfield that has proven itself effective at winning the ball – or, at least, stopping their opponents from winning the ball.

While the top of the tree is sound, the Cats are challenged for depth. Their second tier of midfielders are limited, all with their own strengths but with weaknesses in skills, speed or size. For instance, Scott Selwood is a defensive midfield machine but has a worse kicking boot than I do. Mark Blicavs has height and heft, but is limited when the ball hits the deck. Sam Menegola excels at winning the ball, but makes poor decisions and isn’t a great kick himself. You get the picture.

Indeed, last year, the Cats seemed to employ a deliberate negating strategy across their midfield, which saw its second-tier midfielders take intensely accountable roles to allow Dangerfield, Selwood and Duncan to run the show. Geelong was merely average at converting time in possession to inside-50 entries, suggesting challenges moving the ball in a strategic way.

A revamped forward group, and more nimble defensive half will help no end – particularly if the Cats get another 66 games of superior football from their trio at the top.

There will be some change, but Geelong enter 2018 as one of the league’s most likely premiership contenders. The club’s preseason campaign, with games against Gold Coast and Essendon, will be vital to assessing whether Scott and his crew have made the changes needed to convert on the promise of the past two seasons.

Gary Ablett (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

You’re forgetting someone…
Oh, and then there’s the return of Gary Ablett Jr – one of the finest attacking midfielders the game has seen – to his football home.

That’s quite important too.