Dusty tag must for Cats, says Boomer

GEELONG should “100 per cent” tag Richmond superstar Dustin Martin in Friday night’s MCG blockbuster qualifying final, according to games record holder Brent Harvey.

Harvey, who played 432 games for North Melbourne and was forced to deal with taggers throughout his 21year career at Arden St, believes the Cats will be best served by sending a player to Martin, rather than Richmond skipper Trent Cotchin.

Richmond will be wrestling with how to counter Geelong’s midfield dynamos Joel Selwood and Patrick Dangerfield.

“Good teams nullify the opposition’s best players better than their opposition,” Harvey said.

“I would have a tagger from my team going to Dustin Martin. That would be my choice for Richmond. He wins his own footy. I think he’s going to have 25 touches anyway, but I think you can nullify his touches.

“Because he’s a kicker, you can make him handball a little bit more. His kick is elite, so you’ve got to put him under pressure.”

Statistics show a hard tag has worked on Selwood and Cotchin over the past three years, but has little impact on Dangerfield and Martin.

Cotchin has averaged 102.2 SuperCoach points when not tagged but only 76.6 points from seven games where he has been tagged for 40 minutes or more, while Selwood has averaged 13.2 fewer ranking points in the 18 games where he has received close attention.

There is almost no difference in the numbers for Martin and Dangerfield.

Harvey said he believed Cotchin was damaging, but Martin “kicks more goals, and his field kicking is more aggressive”.

Geelong star Dangerfield said Cam Guthrie could “potentially” be the man to go to Martin on Friday night.

“That being said, he’s one player and they’ve got 21 others who will take to the field on Friday night and that’s been the reason behind their success this year,” he said. “It hasn’t been just one player. “So we’ve got to be very wary of the other players they have within their side.”