Footy Fix: The Cats are back - but the Swans made it embarrassingly easy. Again

There was a moment on Saturday night where Geelong announced to the footy world, after a sluggish start to 2023, that they are back as a force to be reckoned with.

It wasn’t when Tom Hawkins comprehensively outmuscled Callum Mills for the Cats’ third goal inside 15 minutes of the opening quarter, though that did set the tone for the 93-point rout that followed.

It wasn’t Patrick Dangerfield slamming through a six-pointer from right on 50 in the second term, the sort of goal 33-year olds really have no business kicking after a decade and a half of blood, sweat and tears.

It wasn’t even Bradley Close’s sensational run-down tackle on Chad Warner, to perfectly sum up both the Cats’ relentless pressure and ferocity and their team clamp on the one Swan in last year’s grand final who offered any resistance.

No. It was at half time, with the Cats 35 points to the good, when Tom Stewart gave the troops a talking to after coming ever so slightly off the boil in the final five minutes before the siren.

The Cats had every right to be content with their barnstorming first half, one that ended with a margin just one behind what it was on that memorable Saturday in September last year. After effective but inconsistent wins over Hawthorn and West Coast in their previous fortnight, Stewart made sure there was no such complacency.

The result was the Cats’ first four-quarter effort since the grand final, and officially proved that this side has not only the capacity, but the desire, to do it all again in 2023.

Geelong didn’t concede a goal after half time, in a match they already had by the scruff of the throat. This remains a superb football side.

It’s important to acknowledge the Swans’ weaknesses: minus Paddy McCartin, Tom McCartin and Dane Rampe, their defence was never going to stand up to the Cats’ multi-pronged forward line if they got any kind of territory advantage.

And so it proved: that Hawkins, the biggest, baddest key forward in the game, was stood by Mills, the Swans’ best midfielder, showed just how desperate John Longmire was. Shorn of Joel Amartey and Lance Franklin in attack, too, their forward line was without contested-marking options to speak of, and left Logan McDonald woefully outnumbered on the few occasions the ball came his way.

But to put this match down to injuries doesn’t give the Cats enough credit, nor the Swans enough blame. Only one side came to GMHBA Stadium with a point to prove, and it wasn’t the one that got humiliated last September. No team with flag aspirations should be embarrassed to the extent the Swans were.

For the second match in a row, the Cats comprehensively obliterated the Swans around the ball. The numbers weren’t as stark as in the grand final, but it was every bit as one-sided, not least because the Cats this year have had a weakness in that regard.

Warner was a shining light last time, so the Cats prepared: for the first half, Mark O’Connor stuck with him away from the contests, while Tom Atkins minded him at centre bounces. The aim was never to deny Warner the ball, but to make sure every possession was hard-earned, under pressure, and in a confined space.

It meant Warner ended with a creditable six clearances, but none with his trademark speed breaking away into open space and driving the ball deep into the Swans’ attack. For a player as damaging as the Sydney number one, 11 of 20 possessions being contested is a sizeable win – and just one inside 50, after five in the grand final, is even better.

Compare his performance to Dangerfield’s, the Cats’ most damaging inside midfielder from the grand final. James Rowbottom stood with him at stoppages, but it achieved little: Dangerfield was just too strong and too powerful.

He finished with seven clearances, two fewer than Warner, but there was a key difference. When Dangerfield won the ball, it was often goal side of Rowbottom, allowing him to burst into open space and do what he’s done repeatedly in the last three weeks – find Hawkins’ barrel chest on the lead.

Dangerfield headed inside 50 on seven occasions – and with the Swans’ defence at breaking strain and the veteran kicking better than he has in years, it was doom.

Up forward, the plan was simple: divide and conquer. Rarely were Hawkins and Cameron ever in the same vicinity inside 50; if Hawkins led one way, Cameron went the other. Both comprehensively dominated their opponents, but even if one had been quiet, they’d have functioned perfectly as a decoy.

With the Swans so fearful of that duo, others slipped through the cracks: Sam Simpson and Gary Rohan bobbed up for three marks inside 50 each, while Dangerfield and Ollie Henry each had two, as part of 22 marks in the attacking arc – the Swans had five.

Close brought the heat with frenetic pressure, a big part of the Cats’ eight goals from forward half intercepts; while link man Gryan Miers also helped drag Swans defenders away from the danger zones with relentless leading and feeding back with the play.

So much of the Swans’ demise was self-inflicted. Mills at full back neither solved the Hawkins issue, while also robbing the Swans of their best contested ball winner. Rowbottom, Errol Gulden and co. were once again no match for the ferocious Cats at the coalface, especially Dangerfield; the bullocking presence of Mark Blicavs, nominally the ruckman but really an oversized rover, made it even more one-sided.

The Cats kicked nine goals to one from stoppages, won contested possessions (normally a weakness, as it was against Gold Coast) 140-119, and all while losing the clearances 35-36. In the immortal words of Jasper Beardly, that’s a paddlin’.

Up forward, Aaron Francis brought neither pressure nor an aerial influence until the final quarter, by which time the horse had bolted halfway up the Hume Highway. It meant fewer crumbs for Tom Papley, handled masterfully by Stewart all night, and left the Cats able to even use Sam De Koning in the ruck for lengthy periods, even with Blicavs still on the ball.

In the third quarter, with the match gone and the margin already ballooned, Longmire finally switched Francis into defence and pushed Mills onto the ball. It didn’t work – by then, the Cats smelled blood in the water – and perfectly showed the Swans’ scrambled thinking.

66 points down isn’t the time to shake things up – indeed, the Swans’ only hope with their second-string backline was to throw everything at the stoppages and try for territory domination.

Mills, Parker and Warner at centre bounces, Papley and Heeney to rotate in, and use Peter Ladhams’ size and ruck craft advantage over Blicavs to welly it forward at every opportunity. They might have had a chance at keeping the margin under 10 goals – realistically, though, they didn’t have a prayer of victory with Geelong in this sort of mood.

54 inside 50s for the Cats brought with them 20 scores – but that was always going to be the case. Geelong breaking even in the clearances is death for every single team they play – it means they’ve got their hands on the ball enough to give their forward line adequate supply, and ensures repeat inside 50 entries to put their backs under the pump are rare.

Really, the only lull was in those five minutes before half time, when the Swans got on top around the ball with 14 contested possessions to 11. Their one-wood all night, defensive transition, came into play, with three of the Swans’ five first half goals launched from their back 50. Two quick goals and a 6-3 inside 50 advantage gave the barest of impressions the worm had turned.

Then Stewart had his say, and after half time, normal service resumed.

Patrick Dangerfield of the Cats is tackled by Luke Parker of the Swans. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)

This was as disheartening a performance from the Swans as any under John Longmire: rather than learning from the mistakes that tore them apart in the grand final, they were even more brutally exposed.

The Swans went in trying to protect their defence as much as they could, with the result that they at no point gave trying to win even half a crack. If they were playing the round-ball football, it was like putting every player in the goals and just trying to block every shot.

Longmire loves to put Mills behind the ball at the first sign of danger, with the result almost invariably ceding control around the ball. I’d call it a panic, except it happens every week, and there’s surely enough data by now to tell that it ain’t working.

The Swans, as exciting as any team to watch in full flight, were held goalless for a half. As good as the Cats were, they couldn’t have made it any easier for them if they’d tried.