Ivey a tower of strength after knee operation
JORDAN Ivey says she is feeling comfortable and confident since returning from a knee reconstruction last year.
The Geelong small forward has had a constant run since returning through the Cats’ VFLW side last year, gradually building her output.
Her four tackles in Saturday night’s loss to the Bulldogs highlighted both her commitment to the cause and her confidence to put her body into vulnerable positions. Ivey said it took a while to feel confident in herself again, but was feeling the best she had felt in a long time.
“I feel like my confidence is probably growing each game,” she said.
“I probably haven’t felt like this since
“I did my knee, so at training and during the matches I’m feeling like I’m starting to play a bit of a part in the game I guess.
“I just can’t wait to play next week and the week after and see what I can do to help the team.”
The Cats will on Sunday come up against a formidable Adelaide outfit that pushed the Bulldogs to within a point in Round 1.
But Ivey said the Cats would continue to improve after learning some lessons in Saturday’s loss, and would hopefully add the top-line talent of captain Melissa Hickey and Rocky Cranston.
“I don’t think we can leave utterly disappointed, I think there’s a few things we can take away from the game, but obviously we’ll review that and see what we can do next week against the Crows,” Ivey said.
“You could tell they’re pretty well drilled. I guess they’ve had two years in the comp already, so they were looking for that free (player) every chance they had, that was something we had a focus on but they still ended up picking through our defence a little bit in that sense.
“Maybe it was a couple of mistakes in front of goal that let us down a bit and they had a five-minute block in the sec- ond quarter where they kicked three and that probably turned the game a little bit in that sense.”
Ivey said she would throw her arms around young gun Nina Morrison, who went down with an ACL tear at training last week.
“I saw it at training and had a feeling it could have been something like that and obviously when we found out the news, just utterly devastated for her because she had the footy world at her feet,” Ivey said.