Keep the faith, fans
PERTH TRIP MIGHT BE GOOD THING
I’M not worrying about Geelong’s form. And neither should you.
Yes, the Cats find themselves in a bit of a slump. Yes, some of their stars are down on their usual high class best.
Yes, Geelong now finds itself in a battle to secure a top-two spot and a home final.
But it doesn’t take long for the form of the team and individual players to turn around.
For a player that can happen in a match, or a quarter, or even a 10minute spell. That’s all it can take to ignite again.
I think you can put Geelong’s drop in form down to a number of things.
It has increased its training load, there’s guys going into games fatigued and they’ve travelled, too.
And you could argue that even Geelong’s ladder position has had an impact, given how comfortable it has been at the top of the ladder for so long.
So while they are all minor things, when you add them all up together they become something a little bit bigger. It can disrupt you a little bit.
And that’s all it takes — being a few per cent down on normal — to get rolled in the AFL these days. And that’s Geelong right now.
This isn’t the same competition that it was 10 years ago. It’s so, so even.
Teams outside of the eight aren’t much worse than those towards the top. It’s a small gap and that’s what’s caused so many upsets this year.
Fremantle’s win over the Cats was more evidence of that. The Dockers turned up, had a massive crack and were rewarded.
I’ve noticed some criticism of the Cats for spending the week in Perth. People have labelled it a holiday.
I don’t think it was that at all. I have no doubts the players worked hard when they were on the track.
But you can gradually slip into holiday mode sometimes. You’re in the sun, away from home, everything is different and it’s nice and warm.
It's pretty easy to see how the foot can slip off the pedal a little bit over the course of five or six days.
But I don’t think it was a disastrous decision. To be honest, we probably won’t be able to fully judge it until after finals.
Mark Blicavs said after the game he was disappointed the players couldn’t get the instant reward from the trip.
But Blicavs was confident that the week away from the grind of daily footy life would have benefits later in the season.
There’s no reason why the Cats won’t come out in finals and go bang, bang, bang and win the flag.
After that we’d be saying: “Oh, it might have been the Perth trip that helped.”
Sometimes you just need to have a little faith. I’m confident things will turn around. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the young players can do in the final three games of the season. While the Cats are looking a little bit flat, players like Gryan Miers, Jordan Clark and Tom Atkins can all provide that spark that can dig Geelong out from its form rut. That trio have all been in superb form this year, and Brandan Parfitt and Quinton Narkle should be floating around the senior team fold soon. I’m hoping to see them all have a pretty big impact come finals. I’m loving just how even the finals race is heading into the business end of the season. We’re seeing so many teams with finals hopes coming up against each other in the final few weeks. It’s exactly what the AFL would have been after with its equalisation. We’re now starting to talk about who finishes eighth, who finishes top-two and who the unlucky team is that will miss finals. Can Port Adelaide steal a spot? It has Sydney, North Melbourne and Fremantle left to play. Or will Adelaide hold on with clashes against West Coast, Western Bulldogs and Collingwood left. Giving a thumbs down to those on social media criticising journalists for reporting on players meeting with the movers and shakers at rival AFL clubs. The latest meeting was between Joe Daniher and Tom Harley this week. The way I see it is, if you want to have meetings with players that are sensitive, then don’t have it in public. The minute you step out in public the bigger the chance of someone spotting you. You’ve only got yourself to blame for being busted.