PLUS: MEG’S MISSION
Round 1 test looms
GEELONG captain Meg McDonald has urged her teammates to show the footy world the evidence of how far they have come as a side since joining the AFLW competition in 2019.
The Cats will launch their third AFLW campaign on Sunday at GMHBA Stadium against North Melbourne, in a match set to test the young home team from the first bounce of the season.
McDonald, who has taken over as Geelong captain for 2021, has seen ample improvement on the training track this summer, particularly among those who have been at the club since its inception.
But she said it was now time for the Cats to show that growth on the field and reap the benefits of all of the hard work they had put in.
“I think we are looking to continue the growth that we saw last year,” McDonald said.
“The scoreboard didn’t reflect that, but particularly for those of us who have been in the AFLW system for three years and that group of talent the club had a philosophy of drafting in the first year, we have seen evidence of that growth in pre-season training as individual performers and as a whole team.
“So it is on us now to show evidence of it on field and to continue that growth.”
Geelong reached the finals in its first season in 2019 – although it won just three games and finished the year with a percentage of 65.5 – and was two points outside the top four in its conference in 2020 when the season was abandoned with two matches left to play.
While McDonald acknowledged the strength and even nature of the AFLW competition, she said on-field success was clearly what the Cats were looking to achieve this year and added their destiny was in their own hands.
“Every team aspires to on-field success but the nature of the AFLW is so many different teams have success each year,” she said.
“Eleven of the 14 teams have played finals in the first few years of the competition. But, what is firmly in our control is putting into play what we have practised and getting the rewards of having been in such a great program for so long now.”