Size matters as Cats spin tall story in future rounds
GEELONG is set to have a wealth of talls at its disposal for Round 1 when it meets Werribee again on Easter Sunday.
The Cats were without Wylie Buzza, Timm House, Ryan Gardner and Aaron Black in Friday night’s thumping practice match win over the Tigers — and all four will be available for selection next weekend.
That quartet will join Ryan Abbott, Esava Ratugolea and Stewart Crameri in the side, should that trio miss out on AFL selection.
Rhys Stanley is also expect- ed to return from a low-grade calf strain in the next fortnight.
VFL coach Shane O’Bree said his side would have to get used to playing tall.
“It’s going to be interesting when we get all those guys up and running with the talls and where everyone plays, what’s best for the team and the development and the team,” he said.
“I’m looking forward to that dilemma.”
The Cats showcased a fastmoving brand on Friday night, with a number of long kicks to Ratugolea and Crameri at full- forward delivering crumbing goals. It’s a part of O’Bree’s game plan that he expects to be a constant.
“Without predicting the future with AFL selection, in the VFL we’re going to be tall at times,” he said.
“That could be our strength but also our weakness as well, but kicking it long to our advantage to our talls and getting our smalls to the front and square hopefully helps us lock it in our forward half or kick goals from it.
“We obviously don’t want to keep blazing away and just putting our forwards under the pump too. We’ve still got to keep working on our systems going inside 50.”
That might see 196cm former Adelaide utility Sam Siggins squeezed from the Cats side to face the Tigers, despite his eye-catching game in defence on Friday night.
“Sam’s been a really handy assets for us so far,” O’Bree said.
“He’s played multiple positions — we got a look at him forward, ruck, and down back tonight. He’s still got a bit to go, he’s not fully wound-up and still getting his match fitness up, but we’re hoping he has a really good year.”
O’Bree said his side would take confidence from the practice match win into their season-opening rematch at Spring Creek Reserve.
“You always take confidence when you win but obviously not knowing their team very well at the moment, we’re just going to have to look back to the Williamstown (practice) game a week ago where they beat Willy, and Willy is a very strong VFL team,” he said.