Geelong fails to go the distance

GEELONG’S lack of work rate and speed against Richmond on Friday night has been exposed by tracking data that shows the Cats covered the least ground of any team in week one of finals.

An analysis of player GPS data by Champion Data shows the Cats covered 269.34km at the MCG on Friday night, a drop of 5.5 per cent on their season average of 285.78km.

Geelong also ran 35.07km at high speed — classified as running at 18km/h or more — which again made it the worst ranked team of the weekend.

The GPS numbers are backed up by three other key statistics from the match that showed Richmond worked harder, the Tigers winning the contested possession count 165-146, inside-50s 57-38 and marks 86-66.

Three Cats could hold their heads high for their work rate, with Sam Menegola (14.2km), Tom Hawkins (14.2km) and Zach Tuohy (14km) ranking in the top-five players on the ground for distance covered.

However, defender Tuohy (27 disposals) was the only one of the trio to have any major influence on the game, with Hawkins (15 disposals, one goal) and Menegola (15 disposals) down on their usual impact.

Overall, Richmond players ran 4.85km further on the night and 1.65km more at high speed, at times making the Cats look slow.

“W e would like to be quicker, harder, stronger, more skilful,” Geelong coach Chris Scott said after Friday night’s match.

“I think when you have a poor performance in a quarter (the fourth) all those things seem a little bit more obvious than the reality may well be, but we’d like our players to be quicker.

“We just didn’t have many players playing well, if you want to simplify it.”

High-speed running numbers were down across the board over the weekend due to the contested nature of finals footy, which brought average match scores of 140 points during regular time.

Average match scores during the home-and-away season were 179 points.

Geelong faces an MCG semi-final on Friday night against Sydney, which averaged 288.71km of distance covered per game throughout the regular season — the thirdmost of the final-eight teams.

The Swans are also the best defensive running side left in the premiership race while the Cats cover the least amount of distance in defence.

Chris Scott