House eyes AFL call-up
TIMM House continues to press as Geelong’s most likely next debutant following a best-afield performance against Casey on Saturday night.
The utility was sublime in defence, amassing an equal-game high 29 disposals, six marks and an incredible 12 rebound-50s, backing up his 26 touches and eight marks against Sandringham in Round 2.
House told the Geelong Advertiser that consistency in his role was his main objective, describing his game on Saturday night as “solid”.
“That’s definitely the aim and that’s what I’ve been told from the coaches higher up, so I’ll just keep focusing on that and keep trying to play my role and help my teammates as much as I can,” House said.
“I think it could have been a little bit better in a few areas but I thought I did everything I could to defend first and help attack where I could.”
His intercept marking is clearly a feature of his game, and it’s a lot more pronounced than it was this time last year.
“I’m certainly getting a lot more confident with it, I’ve just got to pick my times whether to spoil or mark or stay down at times,” he said.
“‘Gards’ (Ryan Gardner) and I are working well together now, starting to communicate a lot better about who’s jumping and who’s staying down and that’s certainly working a lot better.”
House played on experienced tall Cam Pedersen for parts of Saturday night’s win and said that opportunity would hold him in good stead.
“I learn something every week, I think,” he said.
“Pedersen loves to run and jump at it, so we just had to stop that.
“But he didn’t get a lot of easy looks I thought. Up the ground, we had a lot of pressure on the footy and they ended up booting it in.
“Rarely they had us one-on-one, which made our jobs a lot easier.”
In regards to an AFL debut however, House will let that take care of itself, knowing Chris Scott has proven a number of times that he’s willing to back in youth, with the emergence of Jack Henry just one example this year.
“It’s certainly encouraging (seeing other debutants play),” he said.
“They just want me to keep playing consistently and playing my role at VFL level.
“Hopefully I’m doing that at the moment and I’m ready whenever.” Absolutely dominated the stoppages with 38 hit-outs to Cam Pedersen’s 11, and six loose ball gets showed his intensity to impact the ground ball. He had 15 touches to three-quarter-time but copped a knock to his shoulder late in that term. He spent most of the last term on the bench with a tracksuit jacket on, but the Cats say it was only precaution with a six-day break to Geelong’s next AFL game. Consummate game as a small defender, finishing with 11 touches and four marks. Wore his opponent like a glove and was rarely beaten one-on-one, with his ability to keep his feet and make the right decisions a highlight. Was busy most of the night, but had the opportunity to turn 1.3 into three or four goals. He had three inside-50s, playing mostly as that mobile high half-forward, and his ability to link the defence and forward line was noticeable. Finished with 22 disposals and his ability to cover the ground was strong. Continues his experiment down back, where he played as the third tall defender alongside Ryan Gardner and Timm House. He was particularly busy early, with nine touches to halftime, but finished the match with just 12 disposals and three marks.