Not good enough
“THERE is no shame in losing a preliminary final. But there is when you deliver that kind of performance.
“Geelong melted in the heat in the first half last night. What was more disappointing — the fact the Cats allowed their opposition to physically impose themselves from the start of the game or the fact they couldn’t muster a response?
“Either way, that first 60 minutes was embarrassing for Geelong. Forget the second half — the fact the Cats didn’t allow themselves to be slaughtered is clutching for positives.
“No one will remember the second half. Everyone will remember the opposition’s brutality. This game was over by the 15th minute of the first quarter.”
We’ve seen and read this before.
No, that’s not last night’s match report. That story appeared in News Corp papers the morning after Geelong’s preliminary final loss to Sydney last year.
Just a case of changing Sydney with Adelaide, isn’t it?
Any finals goodwill Geelong regained from last week’s brilliant tactical performance against Sydney unravelled in the opening 40 minutes from a withering Adelaide last night.
Where Adelaide methodically produced a masterclass of tackling pressure, short-kicking precision and systematic precision, the Cats again showed how to blow up a season of promise in a quarter of footy through turnovers, a lack of composure and a general inability to make the most of precious few chances in a hostile environment.
Just like last year’s preliminary final against a rampant Sydney, Geelong’s season ended in the first quarter last night against the Crows.
Where the Cats were hesi- tant, the Crows were assertive. Where the Cats couldn’t find space, the Crows appeared to have extra men swarming and spreading on every line. Where the Cats invented ways to turn the ball over streaming forward, the Crows took the initiative and humiliated, embarrassed and dismantled the visitors with every clean look at the goals.
You’d swear Geelong trained to turn the ball over, such was the way they mastered the art of butchering the footy. That’s harsh, but Geelong was just so far off the pace.
All those ghosts about a poor finals record since the 2011 grand final again return because, again, this loss had all the hallmarks of those of the past — a poor start and overwhelmed by pressure.
This Geelong team has an identity issue. The Cats are gettable in finals. Come at them with pressure, win the early arm-wrestle and they’ll recoil into a carcass that can be feasted on.
It will define the theme of the pre-season. We’ll hear how they’re hurting, we’ll hear how they’ve learned, we’ll hear how they’ll do things differently again, we’ll hear how the loss shouldn’t define the season. Just like we did 12 months ago.
Geelong has made the top- four four times in the past five seasons — 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017 — which is a phenomenal effort. Yet no grand final appearance to show for it. Three prelim losses and a straightsets exit among them. Amazing home-and-away consistency, but in the brutal reality of a results-driven business, that’s an underachievement.
Geelong has to ask why it hasn’t got the best out of its players in finals. Why it loses the same way.
Or, perhaps the list just overachieves in the homeand-away season, with an inflated win-loss record thanks to a genuine home ground advantage at Simonds Stadium, and then gets horribly found out when the big boys come to play in September.
Geelong has to ask itself whether it really is charting towards a premiership or treading water between third and eighth?
Geelong has to ask itself whether its list is only capable of going this far, or whether the club really is just a Jake Stringer, Gary Ablett or Stewart Crameri away from a flag.
Or, perhaps, whether regenerating on the run can only get the club 90 per cent of the way. Whether, by cutting corners to beat the system, the system has in fact had the ultimate win.