Grand final berth booked, Thomson goes into planning session
LESS than an hour after Thomson broke its 10-year grand final appearance drought, co-coaches Reece Holwell and Brent Taylor returned to the drawing board.
The selection discussion started immediately after the Tigers’ 43-point win, which started with pre-match drama when Aaron Hutchinson was a late inclusion moments before Saturday’s opening bounce.
“Alex Denham hasn’t actually done his hamstring but it was feeling tight in the warm up so we iced him up in case it was going to blow early,” Taylor said.
“‘Hutchy’ came in at a very late notice, probably five minutes, before the first bounce but we’re still confident that ‘Danger’ (Denham) will play.”
Even with Troy Fenyvesi suffering a season-ending knee injury a week ago, the Tigers never looked in doubt on Saturday after stifling reigning premier Bell Post Hill’s forward entries in the opening 40 minutes.
Taylor believes his side can now go all the way.
“No one is unbeatable,” he said.
“We saw what happened today in the Bellarine, many people would have said that Barwon Heads were unstoppable, so we’re using that example going into this week against Inverleigh.”
Veteran defender Adam Wiseman was the Tigers’ best ahead of Jared Matheson, who kicked four goals in the first half.
Wiseman, 38, will hope to add a GDFL premiership medallion to his collection that includes six with GFL club South Barwon and his 2004 flag with Geelong Amateur.
“We were clearly outplayed for the first 3½ quarters against Bell Post Hill in the qualifying final,” Taylor said.
“Then last week (in the semi-final) during the first half we just didn’t capitalise on the scoreboard despite having control over Geelong West.
“Today was the first time it felt like everything went right from the get go.
“The focus at halftime was to continue getting that stuff right, you don’t get eight goals up, so we didn’t want get carried away from our basics.”
The Hawks outclassed the Tigers twice in season 2018 by fair margins.
Inverleigh livewire Simon Seddon collected 46 disposals against the Tigers in Round 6 and his match-up will be a discussion all this week.
“Inverleigh is a wellrounded team, so we’ll have to look at their targets, especially Seddon, who proved he could be dangerous up forward, he’s so explosive and so quick as well,” Taylor said.
“(Ruckman) James Huybens is also going to be a big target so might do 60 per cent of the ruck and then sit behind the ball and let Chris Jones ruck up forward.
“Now we have to ask ourselves, do we bring in Alex Bowles or do we let Matt Baden do all the work. One of many decisions we’ll need to make right now.”
While he says his side could make up to three changes, Denham remains the most likely to return to the side.
“Some of the guys that were in our bottom six last week went up to the middle six or seven on the weekend, so it will be a tough selection,” he said.