KILLER CATS

Crows next target after Swans swept aside

GEELONG came to play last night, and Sydney didn’t turn up. And it was the Cats who earned a preliminary final match-up with the Adelaide Crows, after they smashed the Swans by 59 points at the MCG. Patrick Dangerfield was awesome early for Geelong.

GEELONG has blown the finals series wide open with a gutsy 59-point upset win over premiership fancy Sydney.

The Cats played Patrick Dangerfield deep in attack and his four first-half goals spearheaded their semi-final triumph last night at the MCG.

It brought Sydney’s barnstorming run this year to a shuddering halt, while Geelong will now head to Adelaide for next Friday night’s preliminary final against the Crows.

It is also Sydney’s lowest score since Round 1, 1997.

After starting the season with a 0-6 losing streak, the Swans had won 15 out of 17 before last night.

The popular thinking was that the Swans would dispatch Geelong and play Adelaide in a titanic preliminary final, with the victor emerging as the premiership favourite.

Conversely, there were big question marks over the Cats, especially their hardness.

Since the 2011 premiership, they had only won two out of nine finals and they were staring down the barrel of another straight-sets September exit.

Already at long odds, the Cats suffered a major blow when key defender Tom Lonergan was a late withdrawal with food poisoning.

Lonergan, who retires at the end of this season, has a good record against Lance Franklin.

Despite a heavily bandaged right thigh, Franklin would have started the game thinking he had a big night ahead.

But instead Franklin had a nightmare, kicking 0.3, with Harry Taylor going back into defence and leading a superb team defence against the Coleman Medallist.

At the other end of the ground, Cats coach Chris Scott produced a masterstroke. Scott took Dangerfield out of the midfield and played him oneout in the goalsquare.

Slow starts had killed Geelong in their past two games against the Swans. But after the Swans kicked the first goal, Dangerfield booted the next two and the Cats clearly were up for the fight.

Just as Dangerfield starred at one end and Franklin was struggling at the other, the Cats were outstanding from the start in the midfield. Mark Blicavs blanketed Swans captain Josh Kennedy, while Sam Menegola was prolific.

Before last night, every time Geelong led at quarter-time this season it had won. The Cats had a five-point lead at the first change, then went into overdrive in the second term, kicking six goals to one and leading by six goals at halftime.

Sydney counter-attacked, but Franklin’s bad miss from a simple set shot late in the third term summed up their night.