Geelong: review of their last decade
There has never been a time where I’ve looked and seen the Bombers are playing Geelong and thought to myself, "Yes! The Cats! Easy 4 points!"
For a while now the Cats have been consistently in the top 8, only missing the finals once in the last 10 years. That’s very good.
They’ve been putting themselves in good positions to win flags for years, but haven’t capitalised on them. I mean at least for the amount of appearances in the finals. They’ve won 3 premierships in the time since the Bombers last FINALS win.
One of their secrets is the fact that Chris Scott has been coaching since 2010. This creates a familiarity for players coming into the team and players don't have to take ENTIRE seasons getting used to a new coach. A thing that Carlton has struggled with in recent years.
Another is the age of the Geelong list. They had THE oldest average player age in the AFL last year and have been up their for the last decade if not on top. This experience and knowledge of older players has helped the Cats run out the games and fight until the final siren. This was similar to Hawthorn a couple of years ago, making the Cats v Hawks game a spectacle as you would never know who would win until the last couple of seconds.
Many critics have predicted Geelong’s downfall multiple times, saying that once the experienced players retire and the Cats are left with a younger list, they won’t be the power house that we all know now. But Geelong have done the complete opposite and even when Gary Ablett Jr left for the Sun’s, Geelong showed they don’t need one star to win games for them.
Geelong's picked up some good players in recent years as well, like Patrick Dangerfield, Jeremy Cameron and Luke Dahlhaus just to name a few. The ability to pick up not just best 22 players from other clubs, but star players is something that has helped Geelong.
I was really disappointed in Geelong’s grand final performance in 2020. They had the skill to beat Richmond, but just never really looked in control. Watching Gary Ablett Jr injure his shoulder, especially in his last game was heartbreaking. He didn’t deserve to go out like that.
