Plenty of work still to do: Danger

GEELONG champion Patrick Dangerfield admits there is plenty for the Cats to work on after their narrow one-point loss to Hawthorn at the MCG yesterday.

A number of glaring holes were exposed by the Hawks, who had to withstand a late charge to secure a thrilling victory.

The Cats were well beaten in the ruck for the second week in the row. This time it was Rhys Stanley that had his colours lowered to Ben McEvoy. Last week it was Zac Smith to Melbourne’s Max Gawn.

They could only manage 43 inside-50s. Against the Dees they had the fewest inside-50s of any team in Round 1, but were the most effective in terms of scoring.

It was a similar scenario yesterday.

They also allowed Hawthorn 62 inside-50s. That’s a number you can’t let any team have, especially when you’re missing your two most experienced defenders (Harry Taylor and Lachie Henderson).

Hawthorn kicked five unanswered goals in the second quarter to blow the game open.

Had Geelong won — it was down by 25 points in the last quarter — it would have been the great escape.

The Cats were outplayed for large parts of the Easter Monday blockbuster, but still managed to work its way back into the match late in the last quarter.

Jarryd Roughead kicked the matchwinning point with two minutes left, but even then Geelong had enough time to surge forward and kick a goal. But it couldn’t.

Dangerfield said there was plenty areas for Geelong to improve ahead of its trip to Perth to play West Coast on Sunday.

“There’s never just one thing, a reason behind a team scoring chains of goals,” Dangerfield said.

“They were efficient out of the middle, that’s an area we can improve on, I think.

“We were efficient when we went inside-50 but we conceded -16 inside-50s in the first half so that makes it difficult.”

One positive, for Dangerfield, was that he wasn’t limited by the hamstring injury he suffered in Geelong’s pre-season loss to Essendon in Colac.

He got through the game unscathed, but exhausted after collecting 31 touches.