Cats go in for the kill
In-form outfit proves impossible to stop
IN many ways, what Geelong did to Gold Coast on Saturday night was what most thought it would have done to Carlton just a week earlier.
While dismantling weaker opponents has not always been a strong suit of the Cats in recent years, when they’re in the mood and can sense a kill they go after it.
Geelong has now won 41 of 60 games since the start of 2016 — five of those have been by between 60 and 69 points, five have been by 85 or more.
So nearly a quarter of all its victories have been by margins in excess of 10 goals.
What that says is that on their day the Cats can be as ruthless as any side in the competition and almost impossible to stop when everything clicks.
At Metricon Stadium, just about everything clicked, and while there is undoubtedly room for improvement, irrespective of the result, the signs look promising for Chris Scott that his side has worked its way out of the mini rut it found itself in.
In previous years this has lasted longer and been more damaging in terms of the win-loss column, but to their credit the Cats went to work and fixed what needed to be fixed.
While restricting the opposition from scoring has not been Geelong’s major issue — it has now kept its opponent to 56 points or under in six of its past eight games — hitting the scoreboard going the other way has been a hurdle.
But the final score of 17.19.121 was its highest tally of the season and came about because of its ability to move the ball quickly through the middle of the ground, which in turn allowed its forwards to create better options further afield. It resulted in a season-high 19 marks being taken inside-50 — a vast improvement from the past two matches, during which the Cats had taken a total of just 12.
The performance of Gary Ablett was a highlight and reward for his determination to get back to what he knows he is capable of producing and Mitch Duncan’s capacity to punish the Suns off the back of the square is something opposition teams will look to address in the month ahead.
He is one of Geelong’s best users of the ball by foot and on Saturday his 32 disposals were delivered with a remarkable 84 per cent efficiency.
Duncan is a star so it was surprising given how much of the ball he had and how well he was using it that an opponent didn’t think to put some work into him.
Of course, even the 85-point victory can’t hide the fact the ruck dilemma hasn’t gone away and with the stretch of games against teams outside the eight behind them, the Cats now face North Melbourne and Richmond before the bye.
It will be curious to see whether they stick with Rhys Stanley — who has now had 17 disposals in two games back from the VFL and had 18 hit-outs to Jarrod Witts’ 47 on Saturday night — or go with a debutant in Ryan Abbott, who has been edging closer to a call up in the past few weeks.
Either way, you get the feeling if Geelong is to compete at the end of the year, it has to get greater output from whoever is in the team, so Scott will be imploring his big men to produce greater levels of consistency.
He will have been satisfied, however, with the overall display from his side.
In a game that could easily have led the Cats from a mini rut into a slump, they came out firing and walked away victorious.