Patty’s pain sure to challenge Cats
GEELONG are bracing for their biggest test of the Dangerwood era with the likely prospect of no Patrick Dangerfield for the first time in tomorrow night’s top-of-thetable clash with Adelaide.
Cats coach Chris Scott yesterday rated Dangerfield only a 40 per cent chance to take on his old side but the midfielder will travel with the team to South Australia and be given until the last moment to prove his fitness.
If there was any doubt, the Brownlow Medal favourite would remain on the sidelines. Dangerfield has played every game for the Cats since crossing from Adelaide for the 2016 season and Scott admitted it was hard to tell how the side would respond without him.
“I’m not one that subscribes to the theory that you take one of the best players in the competition out and just bring another player in and everything’s fine,” Scott said.
“Clearly we rely on our best players. I think every team does.
“But it’d be an interesting challenge for us to perform really well against the best team without Patty.
“We got a bit of a look in the Fremantle game and the GWS game without Joel (Selwood).
“I’m not sure that we’ve done it without Patty so it will be a test.”
Dangerfield still had his injured foot in a moon boot yesterday and while his teammates trained, he wasn’t spotted on the track.
But Scott said not to read too much into that.
“The play from us at the moment is to give it as long as possible, recuperate and then give it a decent test to make sure he’s up for it closer to game day,” he said.
Scott said he didn’t think the winner tomorrow night would have a psychological advantage come finals.
“I think the psychological edge is really so overrated,” Scott said.
“I’ll spin it around the other way, if they knock us over I don’t think that we’ll be psychologically damaged.
“It’s a really important game, we’re not running away from that, we embrace the contest and we’ll do everything we can to win and I think it’ll really help the team that gets over the line, give them a little bit of a buffer, but it won’t be completely destructive to the team that doesn’t win either.”
Scott Selwood (hamstring) and Andrew Mackie (late withdrawal with a wrist last weekend) are expected to return from injury.
Star Adelaide midfielder Rory Sloane, who was knocked out playing against Melbourne on Saturday, completed a full training session yesterday and is likely to play tomorrow night.