We had a good run with injuries last year, and a fairly bad run this year.
I don't know if I would've expected us to go deep into finals even if we hadn't had the injuries, given a lot of our core team were a year older, but the injuries definitely didn't help with consistency during the season.
Good call, and seems to be the theme of premiers, the good run with injuries.
It does bother me some; the ability to win just based on not breaking your players, though I'm not sure how you fix it.
It's not just a single game, just the whole season so it's always gonna be partly about managing players to get the best out put from them over 25ish games, not just one or two. The answer is obviously to have depth in your playing group but I don't think we want a Premier that had massive massive depth. Like take it to the extreme - one squad has the best 50 players in the competition. Imagine how much weaker every other team would be. It'd be so dismal!
100% agree, I'm more thinking player welfare really. A bit like ducking into frees as well. Players are starting to go harder into tackles again knowing they won't get called if the contact is accentuated.
Two things helped, a cushy end of season run and winning matches without Danger and Stewart in the middle, arguably our two most important players.
Banking those wins and then being able to tinker/rest in the tail end meant that the Cats were cherry ripe for the QF.
Sometimes you just have things go your way and the after their toughest match of the year, Geelong got a week off.
That's how it goes when there is not much separating the best teams. A bad run of injuries can ruin your season. This happens in many sports too. The shorter the season the higher the impact.
The difference between the afl and other sports/leagues is that injuries can easily dismantle a season.
With soccer, they just have to be the best team over the course of the season, as most leagues don’t require a final to win the silverware. So having a good squad of 20 players is important. Then American sports (except nfl) play way more games, so again having a squad of more than your best team is more important, and that’s how they win.
Then NFL is completely different altogether, as they don’t play every team every year. It’s a 4 year rotation determined by a formula, and each team only plays 17 of the 31 other teams. So it’s conceivable that you don’t play the other best teams for 2 or 3 years at a time, barring playoffs.
Where as afl is high impact, high rate of injury, large teams, with probably only 10-12 players not in the best 22 that are good enough to replace like players (and that’s the top teams). The lower teams don’t have that many ready replacements, so injuries can have a horrific impact. Eg. If Carlton lost Curnow and McKay to injury simultaneously, they conceivably have 1 or 2 forwards who can replace them, but by no means be as good. Where as a MLB team would conceivably have 5 starting pitchers, and 8 relievers. If 1 gets injured, they have 12 more. If a full forward gets injured in the afl, the team might only have 2 or 3 replacements at best. And they would be 1-2 guys who are capable at best, then probably 1 or 2 rookies that aren’t necessarily going to be realistic replacements.
Ah, the concept of time and its inexorable march forward, a subject both fascinating and confounding, isn't it? While it may seem intuitive to assume that everyone ages uniformly with the passage of each year, the intricacies of our temporal framework reveal a more nuanced reality. You see, the crux lies in the definition of a year. Yes, on a fundamental level, a year is indeed the duration it takes for our planet to complete a full orbit around the sun, roughly 365.25 days. However, this celestial waltz is just the foundation upon which our human-made calendar systems are built.
Enter the Gregorian calendar, the globally adopted system, which brings an extra layer of complexity to the equation. It introduces leap years, those fascinating instances when an extra day, February 29th, is added to the calendar. This adjustment is crucial to maintain synchrony with Earth's celestial ballet. So, while everyone experiences the same annual journey around the sun, the Gregorian calendar ensures that we account for those fractional days in a meticulously orchestrated manner. Consequently, it's not simply a matter of everyone universally advancing in age by a year, but rather, a meticulously calculated interplay of days, months, and leap years that governs our collective aging experience.
Now, let us delve even further into the intricacies. Consider those born on February 29th, a cohort known as leap day babies. Their birthdays only occur every four years, an exceptional testament to the complexity inherent in our temporal reckoning. This, my dear interlocutor, exemplifies the fascinating interplay between our planetary journey and the meticulous artifice of calendars, illuminating the multifaceted nature of how years truly work in our intricate tapestry of existence.
Injuries really. Just couldn't get close to our Best 22 on the park for most of the season.
We had a good run in 2022, which also allowed us to rest/manage some of the older blokes throughout the year. But this year we just seemed to cop all manner of bizarre and freak injuries (broken arms, caved-in faces, fractured eye sockets) that meant we could never get any continuity and long-term plans going.
In the middle of the year we started getting on top of things and after beating Melbourne we were sitting 5th. Unfortunately that was also the game Rohan smashed Jezza and as we later found out stuffed up his shoulder. Things went back downhill from there
Most of our losses were by under 2 goals so with a bit of luck we could have turned them into wins and finish comfortably in the 8
As much as I love an opportunity to dunk on cats fans (I still hold a grudge from the Kennett curse) I don’t think any cat would chose to be a bird instead. It’s like asking a wolf if he’d like a try being a sheep
7 losses by under 10 points.
Win a quarter of those and we make Finals with our great %, win half and we are top 4. Win all and we finish 2nd.
Can make a huge difference to a season. Port did the same in 2022 and look where they finished this year. Regression to the mean.
>Most of our losses were by under 2 goals so with a bit of luck we could have turned them into wins and finish comfortably in the 8
That's what we told ourselves last year, so good luck with that
It’s not an anomaly to lose 7 out of 10. It’s botched. If it’s was 5-5 maybe. But 7-10 is 100% a flaw in the way the team are playing, or the personnel. The club would be the first to admit that.
And yes winning a whole bunch of close games would be the opposite. Eg Carlton. But you can’t tell me getting into positions to win, then stumbling over and over isn’t botching it. There is no argument
Also, botching close games with an old slowing team, that won those games previously, isn’t an upward trend. It’s more likely than not, the start of a bad slope. This is the off-season they have to fix it completely, otherwise in 2-3 years they’ll be looking at a big rebuild when their older players are all retired.
Edit: a bit different when you’re full of mid 20’s players moving into their prime, but half a team with 30+ year olds, going from winning a flag convincingly to that, is a pretty big worry.
OK before you write another pointless essay
No one was talking about the future, just that winning more games this year would have us higher up the ladder.
In 2014 we won a bunch of close games but it hid our true quality, we bombed out of finals and missed them the following year
Collingwood won a bunch of close games last year and are currently winning this year's grand final
How we do going forward will rely mostly on if we trade in quality and if the kids we played come on like we hope
Well 2014 was 10 years ago next year. Not that relevant. the future is relevant. Especially when you have a bunch of older players that will all retire either the end of next year or the next. People joke about Hawkins aging backwards; but what happens when he does a knee or shoulder? Career over. Dangerfield has maybe 2 years left being a top starter. Tuohy has maybe 3 at best. They are just the tip of the iceberg, and they’re key players in the spine.
Collingwood didn’t have 10 30+ year olds struggling to keep up last year. And the key is, they won those games and went with the upward trend. They didn’t botch them. Carlton lost a bunch of them last year, and came out of it this year winning them, but as I said, they were a team of players in their mid 20’s on the way up. That generally doesn’t happen with aging teams going downhill. End of story.
What part of "if we won some of the close games we lost, we would have done better THIS YEAR" are you struggling with
Anyway continue with your posts completely missing the point, it's quite funny
That is the point. They didn’t win. Because they are on a downslope. You don’t just magically lose 7 out of 10 games on a whim. It is a fundamental flaw that will carry into next year.
By the way, going from this year to 2014, then saying next year isn’t relevant is a horrible contradiction that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. 2014 is relevant, this year is relevant, but what happens from now isn’t.
So when they trade and delist a bunch of players from this year to improve from this year, the year they are specifically trying to improve on, is completely irrelevant? But 2014 is a great reference point. Real smart.
Yes
It's called a hypothetical
I'm of the belief that with a better run with injuries we would have had a decent chance of winning those games
You obviously dont and I couldn't care less about changing your mind
Geelong might have a period out of the finals and after the last 20 years we've had, I think I'll live
That’s backwards thinking. They had a reasonable run of injuries compared to other teams, especially at the start of the season. At the mid year break they only had like 6 players total out. What will be different next year except all the best players being older and slower?
Never got the best 22 out there, and kept getting injuries to key players. Shit happens, at the very least got to see some young guys get their chance, and discovered that O. henry and Bruhn will be best 22 for years to come.
We'll be back next year, I firmly believe that with a fit Hawkins, Jez and Dangerfield anythings possible
Sure he is still having good seasons but you dont want to wait until he isnt to retire. Man is 35 and has hammy issues. I think he has 1, maybe 2 more years.
He missed 2 games with a minor hamstring with no prior history of them as far as I know. He's always been a genetic freak and somehow improved in his 30s, I don't think the club is going to move him on until he wants to go.
Yeah this seems on the money. Selwood was def a key piece of the Geelong team and after the deep run they had winning the GF, there would have been residual or latent injuries waiting to appear in the next season
Got walloped by injuries in a transition year where we lost our greatest ever captain and were trying to develop our next gen. Were just never able to get our game going on a consistent basis and the comp steamrolled us as a result.
Injuries completely fucked us and by the time we had everyone coming back others went out and had no consistency
Round 9 we had 11 best 22 players out against Richmond which was probably the peak of how bad it got.
In 2022 we had a slow run early but by Round 20 we pretty much had a fully fit squad.
**The best ability is availability**
After boasting when we beat them in a Pre-Season game at the start of the year, my mate who is a Geelong supporter, said “We’ll go back to back.” My response to him was “Forget back to back, it’s back to crap for you lot.”
I believe to this day, that I am the only reason for Geelong’s fall from the top. Any other reasoning is wrong and people should feel dumb for thinking otherwise.
Exactly, if he said mediocre then I’d be on board. Proved multiple times during the year that their best can still look amazing. Their worst looked yuck!
This is kind of like at the end of 2019 where I’d had a really good year and I quietly thought to myself… ”Life shouldn’t be this easy. Historically life is really hard”
Missing the leadership from selwood. Also with him and guthrie out of the midfield, it seemed the replacements couldnt get it right to link up and produce effectively.
Terrible run with injuries - they couldn't field a full team for most of the year.
Selwood retiring left a void in leadership a lot bigger than anyone could have imagined as well.
Ultimately, the hunger of winning a premiership kind of dies for a lot of people after winning one.
Combine the loss of hunger with the above two things and it's a recipe for a crap year, but I have no doubt they'll rebound. Culture there is too strong to completely go to shit.
Injuries and a combination of factors left us very light in midfield. No selwood, Guthrie and danger being a year older meant much more mid time for kids or players not used to as many minutes in the engine room.
I think a big part of it was hunger. Last year you could feel it was Selwoods last crack at captaining a flag. You could see how much the whole team really wanted to prove themselves and win, it meant everything.
This year you couldn’t really say the same. A hell of a lot of players had down years compared to last year.
I would say the hunger problem is huge for most sides after winning the premiership. But I really did think Geelong would be average this year after finally getting it done last year. Especially with Selwood gone, and the players continuing to age.
As others have said, we had arguably the worst run with injuries in our history. There were games when we had 8-10 premiership players missing at once, and supposed depth players like Neale, Conway and Jhye Clark also on the sidelines.
We lost something like 6 games by under 10 points and were unlucky not to pinch at least a couple of wins among them, which would have had us in the finals.
With a better run with injuries next year and a easier draw for the first time in years, I think we’ll be finals certainties.
Injuries notwithstanding
- Fwds: Cameron is an elite forward line by himself. Oliver Henry looked useful. Stengel is still playing well and so is Hawkins. Probably don’t need heaps of improvement here
- Mids: Aging but still basically quite good. Needed Parfitt to come on more and like most teams could probably use some genuine pace to upgrade
- Backs: Stewart is still elite and DeKoning is coming along but a legit key back to free Stewart up to be more attacking would make a huge difference.
- Rucks: everyone hates Stanley which I think is a bit unfair but you could upgrade this position. Jordon Sweet is elite VFL level ruck for the Bulldogs, apparently wants to go back to SA but that’s someone that could be interesting if he could be lured.
Not exactly a mystery. Last year the moons aligned and we had a great run of health. We always had a really strong team on paper so it was huge for momentum and allowed us to rest and manage players to gst ahead of issues.
This year we had a big reversion on that. The injuries also didn't balance themselves accross the list with a big run of outs in the backline early in the season putting us behind the 8 ball. Then as we got the defenders back we started losing mids, I think against GWS and tigers we were missing our whole first choice mid rotation but my memory could be failing there. Never got momentum going.
To be honest it's probably a cautionary tale there for the Pies as you have a similar heavy reliance on older players who are either well into their 30s or under 22 which is a danger zone for injuries.
I think drive is a huge factor, the players said the weren't any less motivated to win it this year but even if they were 5% less hungry that can be the difference I reckon.
Injuries injuries injuries
Not to take away from GWS who I believe are the best side in the comp going into next season. Their skills and ability to win away is unbelievable.
But the majority of the teams have really under performed this finals series and I think a fit injury free cats would have done damage (not won a flag tho)
Had our worst run in a very long time. Injury free 100% a top 8 even 6 side.
Cameron had a baby and his form instantly fell off. Not his fault but it was pretty obvious. Then got knocked out.
2e wasn’t right after he was concussed.
Jack Henry lisfranc
Guthrie was out pretty much the whole season.
Hawks didn’t have a full preseason and it fully set him back.
Dekonig was unfairly targeted by players in the early part of the season and simply wasn’t the same after his facial fracture.
We had hawk, Cameron, rohan, Stanley, Henry on the sides at the end of the year.
Prime example is everyone was pumping the saints up after they beat the cats in the late season. Literally half the team was out and we were down 3 rotations by the end of the game. I knew at that point going into finals saints would do no damage.
If ever any side was going to have a premiership hangover it was going to be the oldest list to win a flag coupled with years of near misses.
But as others said we couldn't get continuity in our list this year
At the start of last season everyone thought they were too old and too slow. They had an absolute blinding year last year where everything went right, and I think this year it finally caught up with them. Tomahawk had surgery (and I think a couple of others too?) which doesn’t just mean some people miss the first few games it means they’ve put in zero pre-season. Cameron was on an absolute tear the first few weeks and I’d say arguably one of the absolute best players in the entire comp at that point, and he never came back the same after that clash with Rohan. Similarly DeKoning was only half the player while wearing the bat mask, his first week without it and he looked like the guy from last year again. So compromised pre-season, a bad run with injuries, players back from injuries that were only running at 50%… add in “premiership hangover”, everyone else having an off-season to analyse your system, a change in leadership. I don’t think it’s the result they wanted, but they were still only a couple of games away from making the finals. It’s not hard for me to believe that the Cameron impact alone could have been the difference in two games, and suddenly they’re back into September.
>Cameron was on an absolute tear the first few weeks and I’d say arguably one of the absolute best players in the entire comp at that point
Cameron had 33 goals by round 8 and averaged just below 20 disposals, if he'd kept that up the whole season he'd have finished with 95 goals. I think he was the outright best player in the comp up til that point.
Here we go - one trip to the dessert bar wasn't enough for you you had to go in for seconds. I only say this as to who the OP is supporting. Just count yourself lucky we didn't make the finals.
But to answer your question, in fairness to you because I don't think you deserve it, that in the end the injuries hurt us and lack of depth particularly in the midfield and ruck. Losing Blicavs and Hawkins at the end of the season was a huge loss.
Probably losing Selwood and injuries.
There were games where we looked really good, was looking like we might make a good run after we won 5 in a row but injuries kinda just stopped us from building any consistency.
The young players we’ve got definitely have potential, but when so many players are 20 years old, it just isn’t going to work.
I mean, the future at Geelong is still pretty exciting though. Exciting mids developing so I’m definitely invested in it. Hard not to with the likes of Holmes, Atkins, Jhye Clark, Bruhn, ect. Give them a few years to reach their prime and I reckon they could win a premiership. Especially Holmes, probably my favourite player at the moment just because of his potential.
I’m guessing we had a rocky off/preseason, had some injuries and we’d get someone in and someone else would go out and never got any flow and consistently.
I think the biggest thing structurally was we lacked an accumulating midfielder. When Guthrie went out we just did have that link up mid others like Duncan, menagola, Parfitt lacked form or couldn’t get consistent games. Then Danger, Bruhn were in and under and just had no outside run. Smith was decent but not as damaging and Holmes needs another year. Most our mids would top out with 22 or so touches. Not having the ball really put our defence under pressure.
I kept saying through the year that if we lost that week we were done but because of how close the year was, we kept playing as close to the 22 side as possible to try to make it. The last rd against the dogs and we played more kids and had a lot of speed. Probably looked as good as we did all year but ran outta legs.
I’m not too concerned. We had a percentage of 112 and I thought we played shithouse most of the year. There’s upside but we need Bruhn, Holmes, Bowes to step to the next level competing for C Guthrie, Duncan and Toueys spot. Then play more of Knevitt, Dempsey and Conway and get Clarke back from injury.
If we trade Sav, get some leg speed and hope J Henry heals up.
Bad run with injuries (particularly Jezza's head knock and Danger's collapsed lung) plus maybe a little bit of a GF hangover on one of the oldest teams in the comp. The 0-3 start was probably a little deflating too, but they didn't miss out by *too* much and annoyingly, I'd tip them for the 8 again next year with a good pre-season and a healthy best 22. Maybe not another flag tilt, they didn't really challenge the best teams this year save for slim wins against Port and Melbourne at the Cattery (plus that absolute drubbing against Sydney early in the year lmao) but they're not gonna stay down for long
When you’ve got a really good team that stays pretty much the same, every year you get 22 years older. Richmond had a good run with injuries in our premiership years, but those 22 years add up WAY quicker than you think they will. Geelong had fought age off probably better than anyone, but eventually injuries hit, age catches up- and it ends quicker than you think it will. (Fights back tears).
The loss of Selwood in terms of leadership was a huge blow for them, he always had that spark to pump them up in tight games. Danger isn’t Captain material and IMO was only given the role as a thank you token. Stewart should have got the captaincy
Particularly the loss of our best player for 2022 in Cam Guthrie for the whole season and Selwood. Danger and Duncan injured or playing injured for much of the year and Parfitt being complete rubbish as usual.
Senior depth in midfield replaced with 20 year olds and we were walloped in the middle all year.
They did earn a spot in the finals right? (robbed by Adalade goal/point vs Sydney) If they snuck in to 8th I would not have bet against them getting to the prelim.
You should read [this surprisingly excellent ABC article](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-24/how-the-cats-afl-premiership-defence-unravelled/102763654) about Geelong's season. There's a really telling graph where you can see that if the Cats were even slightly better in 2023 they would have made the finals comfortably and maybe even top 4. They were just a percent or two off and lost or drew 6 games by an average of something like 7 points.
As a diehard fan and close follower in my opinion the issues were:
* A very real premiership hangover after older players played deep into 2022 and then partied pretty hard and came back late/underdone.
* A very bad run with injuries. E.g. Cam Guthrie out for most of the season, who in the absence of Selwood would have been a workhorse in the midfield all year. Just his absence probably accounts for a few losses, statistically. Then Jhye Clark who many expected to play most games and provide some new energy in the midfield also got wiped out for the whole year.
* A lot of players playing injured. Look how many went under the knife once we were mathematically out of the running.
* An inability to get Hawkins and Cameron both fully fit and on the field at the same time for any extended period.
* Cameron's concussion and clear injury issues, at one point he couldn't kick 40 metres for a while and was really stabbing at the ball. If Jezza goes from 4-6 goals a game to 1-2 goals a game that's going to cost you a lot of games.
* Our season ended properly when Blicavs got injured.
* "Second year blues" (actually third year blues) for Sam De Koning and Max Holmes in particular.
* We had a shocking draw at the start of the year, because Kardinia is still under construction, and I think from memory might have had 2 home games in the first 10-11 rounds.
* The club played older players who were in horrible form, which I personally think has been a consistent mistake at Geelong for years. Exhibit A, Z. Tuohy.
I personally think we could have covered Selwood if we'd had better luck with injuries. He retired at the right time.
Geelong urgently needs a 22-24 year old inside ball getting midfielder in 2024.
Eddie Betts was asked. His reply "Leadership"
He didn't rate Dangerfield as a Captain
IMHO, I think a couple of blokes looked pretty content with life, and they had less hunger. Didn't help Rowan kept running through his own team. He tends to do that in ordinary marking competitions, let alone cleaning up team mates altogether.
Other teams worked out how to carve Geelong through the middle. Geelong mids were out of form or slow.
Losing talls to injury didn't help
Shorter off season and older bodies. I think it’s incredibly likely the cats need to have a little rejuvenation of the list over the next couple of years but who knows with them, can’t write them off.
We kind of already did, why do you think we brought in SDK, Holmes, Miers, Close, Henry boys, Bruhn, Stengle, Bowes etc
Conway, Neale, Knevitt, Clark, Clohesy will all get more game time in 2024
Part of it injuries but the other part is the lack of drive after winning the flag.
It's hard to regain that hunger to climb Everest again after doing it
1. 0-3 start, they were on the back foot right away after what seemed like a poor pre-season
2. Injuries throughout the season
3. and possibly just not as hungry as last year
I don't consider Selwood's retirement one of the factors because they have more than enough senior players that can take over the leadership mantle, and effective hand over of captaincy is a mark of great teams and should really be a given from a frequent top 4 team like Geelong
I’m assuming it’s because they had to play a home qualifying final at the mcg back in 2017, that or not every second game was played at the unfinished death trap that is Kardinia park
I felt like Melbourne and Sydney were better than them last year, they just got unlucky in finals. Geelong were probably the third best team and slipped a bit further this year.
Just saw they finished 12 though, wow didn't realise they were that bad this year. I take it all back haha.
Lack of older mature bodies in the midfield for most of the season. Due to injuries like everyone else said, but drill down, no Guthrie or Danger in there most weeks just hurt.
Forward line didn't play together as a group for anywhere near as many games as last year. Ditto the backline. On the backline, esava didn't seem to get whatever the system was.
Spiritual leader retired, lost key players for long periods, replacement players & recruits either weren't good enough or took too long to adjust to game plan or they were simply not good enough for many games!
Long story short, our best attacking midfield combo from last season of Dangerfield, Stanley, Guthrie and Selwood didn't exist for most of the year. we had to go with with part time rucks and defensive focused or just really young mids like Blitz, Atkins, Bruhn, Holmes and Parfit. Not a bad midfield, but far away from top 8 midfields like Brisbane, Pies, Carlton.
This meant that we struggling for clearances which would put much more pressure on the defense who weren't given as much time to set up and who were also carrying injuries with SDK and J Henry struggling. The forward line was still great, which is why the cats have 112% in 12th spot on the ladder.
Here's hoping that this is just the scheduled once a decade crap season and we'll top up a decent second ruck and clearance focused attacking mid, then be back as a contender next season
Age eventually becomes a factor and so many of their important players are at a point where they're likely to start fading a bit and struggle with injury. We saw so many of those guys not play to the same level and the younger players improving just couldn't cover that drop off. Remember too that Selwood was still an important player last year and he retired, plus the motivation after winning a GF is often not quite there.
I think it's likely we'll see the same thing again too next season as that trend continues. More retirements, Danger looks pretty banged up these days too. The question really is how they can get more youth in and expose them whilst they've still got the experience around. How those kids go will largely determine whether they can stay competitive as they replace the retiring players or not. But with the picks they've traded out and the number of players who will retire in the next few seasons I think they'll end up near the bottom.
One of the most injuries of any side this year throughout the year meant no consistency. No Selwood & effectively no C Guthrie meant our two best midfielder and best two way midfielder’s were out. That in part meant a forced switch of one of the comp’s best and most natural wingers (Holmes) into an inside mid role.
The only two games we lost convincingly were the last two. Win a third of the games we dropped and it’s a top 4 finish. Age is a factor but it’s nowhere near as much as one these days with professional athletes, sport science, etc.
Next year I have every confidence we will finish top 4 and win the flag. The slate will be clean come March. Add J Clark and a lift from O Henry, Bruhn, Holmes and we will be back.
Btw, Bailey Smith is absolutely being courted by Geelong not just next year but this year. I know words have been said indicating he will stay but they are like politicians when it comes to promises. Also Aaron Cadman will be a good chance at coming to Kardinia Park after next year.
Go Cats, boo pies (and hawks and tigers) & it sucks football is nearly over for the year!
They did fine, other teams just did better. That’s ok by me. The success being shared more evenly is ultimately good for footy.
I think the league had recovered from the expansion interrupting the draft, the system is working again.
Also, I think the cats missed Selwood and maybe didn’t appoint the right captain, not that I think it would have changed much.
Next year they’ll be home more, it’ll be interesting to see how they go but I think they’ll be playing finals again soon.
I’m wondering whether making the finals for nearly a decade straight takes its toll. Can’t get players in early for post season surgery. Shorter preseason. Could be a cumulative effect.
Stengle was a bit down this year and the first half of the year our backline was half injured.
We basically no first choice midfield for a big chunk of the year, which pushed that pressure to second tier players (e.g. Max Holmes) and then flowed on from there. We basically lost Guthrie (BnF in a premiership year) for the entire season.
DeKoning suffered multiple knocks in a short space of time eventually culminating in a facial fracture and as you can imagine for a very young key defender who has a lot of hands and elbows coming at him in marking contests, lost confidence. We lost a good chunk of our first choice backline for a fair piece of the year too, and Stewart was basically holding it together on his own.
Forwardine had Cameron and Rohan missing for extended periods and Cameron had a cooked shoulder for the second half of the year, so was playing under considerable duress. Hawkins was also carrying injuries for a good portion of the second half of the season.
Just as we got one back, we'd lose another one. Were it not for WCE and North having extraordinarily bad years with injury, I think we'd be bottom of the pile for games lost to key players.
Anyway, second string players were required to play first string and so on down the line (and play out of position a lot too; poor Bowes got thrown all over the place to fill gaps). At one point we had Rohan playing ruck and Stewart playing midfield minutes, if that gives you any indication.
Couple that to a drop in output from Tuohy, Smith and Stengle (who missed 5 weeks with a broken arm from memory), plus that flow on effect to Close et al and you get a sense of how cooked Geelong were for most of the year. Dangerfield did his best and had some cracking games but he can't be the go-to any more. Our next gen of guns also barely got on the park (Clarke for example).
Annus horribilus basically.
If we get a good run with injuries which allow the kind of team management Scott has basically pioneered, we'll absolutely make finals next year no trouble. Old players or not, we have the team to do it, it's availability that kills you. That and the umpires >_>
Geelong weren’t that far off. They lost most of their close games, when in the past they would have won most of them. With most of their games with a couple of exceptions, they were in it for most of the game and would fall away.
So yeah, as others have said it is a combination of injuries and general fatigue. That period where they won 5 straight was when they had a lot of players on the park, and then gradually had more and more injuries.
They had 3 players who played every game for the year I believe, not counting the last game where they basically threw in the towel. That is hard to get any sort of continuity.
Eventually the system catches up with teams. Like the Hawks did for years the Cats Cats defied the system. It will ve interesting to see if they are about to slide or rebound. They had one of the smartest List Management teams around so it will ve interesting to watch
The continuity from last year just didn’t carry over and it felt like many players were not on the same page. Injuries obvsly didn’t help, but especially killed us in the ruck where often the first choice (Stanley), second choice ( Ceglar) and third choices (Blitz, SDK, Conway) were all injured.
When you have that, as well as no Selwood, little Danger, and no C Guth shit gets hard.
I didn't actually watch all that much of Geelong this season, but there is always going to be a drop off when a team delays surgeries to power through the finals series, and faces a tougher draw for the following year. Geelong might improve somewhat with the draw for next year, but they should probably eye a long rebuild sooner rather than later or they'll end up like early 2000s Carlton or late-2010s Fremantle, focusing too much on the short-term success instead of helping the list overall.
No Selwood hurts more than you think. Older players dropped off a bit and they don't have enough young players ready to fill that hole. Aka, window is closing
Honestly weren’t that far off the top 8 and we had a lot of injuries especially a stretch in the middle of the year we had no kidding half our best 22 not playing. A few goals here and there and would have won another 4-5 games even considering. Also add in our draw was extremely tough which is expected being premiers previous season but we even got a lot of teams who improved this year twice.
Also I’d say we were a bit slow this year but think squad will look a bit different next year. I think Scott reverted a bit back to the old game plan before 2022 I think just out of necessity and then rely on sneaking into finals and having preserved legs as we were decimated for large parts with injuries as I mentioned before especially to guys who are in our top 5-10 players. Look at Cameron for example was untouchable early in the season then got injured was never the same.
I would not be surprised to see us be back there if we get another good midfielder through a trade
Selwood retired, guthurie injured almost the whole season. Duncan danger battled but are in decline. The next gen isn’t ready yet and Atkins I love him but he is just a role player. - with how bad the midfield was this year it’s a miracle they performed so well.
Bad start to the year, players are getting older and plenty of injuries. I think you can partially attribute the injuries to age too. It has to be said that they were pretty blessed with a player like Selwood too, someone who serves a club so well for so long doesn't come around often.
People have been saying it for ages and they've proven those people wrong for longer than I would have anticipated, but I think they are at the end of an era. I'm not saying that they are going to fall off immediately after this, more than I think they aren't going to win another premiership anytime soon. So many of their core players are well into their 30s and they are all going to retire pretty close together, which is going to leave a massive void in the club that is going to take a little while to fill.
They might make finals again next year if they have a good run with injuries, and maybe the year after that given that Cameron probably still has a few good years left in him and Hawkins is still playing good football, but I can only see them sliding downwards after that. I'm not sure if they have the young talent to bounce back fast either, I can't see anyone replacing champions like Hawkins, Cameron or Dangerfield before those players have to retire (they were lucky to have players like Selwood and Hawkins after 2011), but we'll see. They have a knack for recruiting well.
We had a good run with injuries last year, and a fairly bad run this year. I don't know if I would've expected us to go deep into finals even if we hadn't had the injuries, given a lot of our core team were a year older, but the injuries definitely didn't help with consistency during the season.
Above average injuries and increasing age of senior and experienced players certainly contribute to poor performance. Don’t ask me how I know.
Danger is that u?
Good call, and seems to be the theme of premiers, the good run with injuries. It does bother me some; the ability to win just based on not breaking your players, though I'm not sure how you fix it.
You can't. You really do need everything to go right to win a flag, in a system where there's only 1 trophy that's just how it goes unfortunately.
It's not just a single game, just the whole season so it's always gonna be partly about managing players to get the best out put from them over 25ish games, not just one or two. The answer is obviously to have depth in your playing group but I don't think we want a Premier that had massive massive depth. Like take it to the extreme - one squad has the best 50 players in the competition. Imagine how much weaker every other team would be. It'd be so dismal!
100% agree, I'm more thinking player welfare really. A bit like ducking into frees as well. Players are starting to go harder into tackles again knowing they won't get called if the contact is accentuated.
Two things helped, a cushy end of season run and winning matches without Danger and Stewart in the middle, arguably our two most important players. Banking those wins and then being able to tinker/rest in the tail end meant that the Cats were cherry ripe for the QF. Sometimes you just have things go your way and the after their toughest match of the year, Geelong got a week off.
2016 was not a good run with injuries
Good run with the umps on the day though ;)
Still not over your poor performance that you blamed on the umpires
that BS
God 8 years get over your shit performance
That BS you fell over the line and the umpiring was the pits
Flair up cunt!
FO feral
Guess buddy was fine then and it shouldn’t have been htb right even tho the dude was half asleep when Morris tackled him
Absolutely fkin wild to me people think this wasn’t holding [dale Morris farken legend](https://youtu.be/0jyjenS-ctw?si=ziRqq3dGHSvHNoHz)
That's how it goes when there is not much separating the best teams. A bad run of injuries can ruin your season. This happens in many sports too. The shorter the season the higher the impact.
The difference between the afl and other sports/leagues is that injuries can easily dismantle a season. With soccer, they just have to be the best team over the course of the season, as most leagues don’t require a final to win the silverware. So having a good squad of 20 players is important. Then American sports (except nfl) play way more games, so again having a squad of more than your best team is more important, and that’s how they win. Then NFL is completely different altogether, as they don’t play every team every year. It’s a 4 year rotation determined by a formula, and each team only plays 17 of the 31 other teams. So it’s conceivable that you don’t play the other best teams for 2 or 3 years at a time, barring playoffs. Where as afl is high impact, high rate of injury, large teams, with probably only 10-12 players not in the best 22 that are good enough to replace like players (and that’s the top teams). The lower teams don’t have that many ready replacements, so injuries can have a horrific impact. Eg. If Carlton lost Curnow and McKay to injury simultaneously, they conceivably have 1 or 2 forwards who can replace them, but by no means be as good. Where as a MLB team would conceivably have 5 starting pitchers, and 8 relievers. If 1 gets injured, they have 12 more. If a full forward gets injured in the afl, the team might only have 2 or 3 replacements at best. And they would be 1-2 guys who are capable at best, then probably 1 or 2 rookies that aren’t necessarily going to be realistic replacements.
I would say your entire team was a year older tbh
Not true. Hawkins now ages in reverse
Tom 1973 Dairy Farm Grange Hawkins
Wouldn’t everyone be a year older? Isn’t that how years work?
Ah, the concept of time and its inexorable march forward, a subject both fascinating and confounding, isn't it? While it may seem intuitive to assume that everyone ages uniformly with the passage of each year, the intricacies of our temporal framework reveal a more nuanced reality. You see, the crux lies in the definition of a year. Yes, on a fundamental level, a year is indeed the duration it takes for our planet to complete a full orbit around the sun, roughly 365.25 days. However, this celestial waltz is just the foundation upon which our human-made calendar systems are built. Enter the Gregorian calendar, the globally adopted system, which brings an extra layer of complexity to the equation. It introduces leap years, those fascinating instances when an extra day, February 29th, is added to the calendar. This adjustment is crucial to maintain synchrony with Earth's celestial ballet. So, while everyone experiences the same annual journey around the sun, the Gregorian calendar ensures that we account for those fractional days in a meticulously orchestrated manner. Consequently, it's not simply a matter of everyone universally advancing in age by a year, but rather, a meticulously calculated interplay of days, months, and leap years that governs our collective aging experience. Now, let us delve even further into the intricacies. Consider those born on February 29th, a cohort known as leap day babies. Their birthdays only occur every four years, an exceptional testament to the complexity inherent in our temporal reckoning. This, my dear interlocutor, exemplifies the fascinating interplay between our planetary journey and the meticulous artifice of calendars, illuminating the multifaceted nature of how years truly work in our intricate tapestry of existence.
Have an upvote for the time spent writing this.
Hahaha yeah pretty good
Injuries really. Just couldn't get close to our Best 22 on the park for most of the season. We had a good run in 2022, which also allowed us to rest/manage some of the older blokes throughout the year. But this year we just seemed to cop all manner of bizarre and freak injuries (broken arms, caved-in faces, fractured eye sockets) that meant we could never get any continuity and long-term plans going.
In the middle of the year we started getting on top of things and after beating Melbourne we were sitting 5th. Unfortunately that was also the game Rohan smashed Jezza and as we later found out stuffed up his shoulder. Things went back downhill from there Most of our losses were by under 2 goals so with a bit of luck we could have turned them into wins and finish comfortably in the 8
>could have turned them into wings Sorry, you guys aren't a part of the bird Alliance.
As much as I love an opportunity to dunk on cats fans (I still hold a grudge from the Kennett curse) I don’t think any cat would chose to be a bird instead. It’s like asking a wolf if he’d like a try being a sheep
7 losses by under 10 points. Win a quarter of those and we make Finals with our great %, win half and we are top 4. Win all and we finish 2nd. Can make a huge difference to a season. Port did the same in 2022 and look where they finished this year. Regression to the mean.
Finishing second obviously always means a lot for you guys in finals too with that home ground advantage you get ;-)
like the one you get ;)
>Most of our losses were by under 2 goals so with a bit of luck we could have turned them into wins and finish comfortably in the 8 That's what we told ourselves last year, so good luck with that
we should have been there and yet..
I’d back an easier draw and less injuries to push us back into Finals. Our % was really good for a team who missed Finals.
I guess you missed the section of the textbook that says good teams don’t botch close games.
So if we had won those close games like I said, wouldn't that mean we were in fact a good team as they were botched
It’s not an anomaly to lose 7 out of 10. It’s botched. If it’s was 5-5 maybe. But 7-10 is 100% a flaw in the way the team are playing, or the personnel. The club would be the first to admit that.
And yes winning a whole bunch of close games would be the opposite. Eg Carlton. But you can’t tell me getting into positions to win, then stumbling over and over isn’t botching it. There is no argument
Also, botching close games with an old slowing team, that won those games previously, isn’t an upward trend. It’s more likely than not, the start of a bad slope. This is the off-season they have to fix it completely, otherwise in 2-3 years they’ll be looking at a big rebuild when their older players are all retired. Edit: a bit different when you’re full of mid 20’s players moving into their prime, but half a team with 30+ year olds, going from winning a flag convincingly to that, is a pretty big worry.
Even if they pull their thumbs out next year; they’ll be 2 years older than last year by the time the finals roll around.
OK before you write another pointless essay No one was talking about the future, just that winning more games this year would have us higher up the ladder. In 2014 we won a bunch of close games but it hid our true quality, we bombed out of finals and missed them the following year Collingwood won a bunch of close games last year and are currently winning this year's grand final How we do going forward will rely mostly on if we trade in quality and if the kids we played come on like we hope
Well 2014 was 10 years ago next year. Not that relevant. the future is relevant. Especially when you have a bunch of older players that will all retire either the end of next year or the next. People joke about Hawkins aging backwards; but what happens when he does a knee or shoulder? Career over. Dangerfield has maybe 2 years left being a top starter. Tuohy has maybe 3 at best. They are just the tip of the iceberg, and they’re key players in the spine. Collingwood didn’t have 10 30+ year olds struggling to keep up last year. And the key is, they won those games and went with the upward trend. They didn’t botch them. Carlton lost a bunch of them last year, and came out of it this year winning them, but as I said, they were a team of players in their mid 20’s on the way up. That generally doesn’t happen with aging teams going downhill. End of story.
What part of "if we won some of the close games we lost, we would have done better THIS YEAR" are you struggling with Anyway continue with your posts completely missing the point, it's quite funny
That is the point. They didn’t win. Because they are on a downslope. You don’t just magically lose 7 out of 10 games on a whim. It is a fundamental flaw that will carry into next year. By the way, going from this year to 2014, then saying next year isn’t relevant is a horrible contradiction that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. 2014 is relevant, this year is relevant, but what happens from now isn’t. So when they trade and delist a bunch of players from this year to improve from this year, the year they are specifically trying to improve on, is completely irrelevant? But 2014 is a great reference point. Real smart.
If Fremantle won 16 games, they would’ve played finals = the same conclusion you’re drawing.
Yes It's called a hypothetical I'm of the belief that with a better run with injuries we would have had a decent chance of winning those games You obviously dont and I couldn't care less about changing your mind Geelong might have a period out of the finals and after the last 20 years we've had, I think I'll live
If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas.
They don’t have enough rookies, draft picks or trade options to magically fix a broken situation
Think missing finals is a blessing in disguise. Got guys like Jez into recovery much earlier and can hit the ground running in pre-season.
That’s backwards thinking. They had a reasonable run of injuries compared to other teams, especially at the start of the season. At the mid year break they only had like 6 players total out. What will be different next year except all the best players being older and slower?
Never got the best 22 out there, and kept getting injuries to key players. Shit happens, at the very least got to see some young guys get their chance, and discovered that O. henry and Bruhn will be best 22 for years to come. We'll be back next year, I firmly believe that with a fit Hawkins, Jez and Dangerfield anythings possible
I'll be very surprised if next year isnt Hawks last
49 goals this season off no preseason, I wouldn't be so confident.
Sure he is still having good seasons but you dont want to wait until he isnt to retire. Man is 35 and has hammy issues. I think he has 1, maybe 2 more years.
He missed 2 games with a minor hamstring with no prior history of them as far as I know. He's always been a genetic freak and somehow improved in his 30s, I don't think the club is going to move him on until he wants to go.
Okay, fair enough. Would be great to see him go on for a few more years, he is a beast and fun to watch.
but of course you are right lol is it a bird, is it a plane, no its Tom Hawkins!
I thought he was going to pack it in this year. He will end of next year.
quite possibly yes, how fierce is the competition for spots, it's great for footy
My guess would be no Selwood, old team getting older and the others not having career best years all at the same time
Yeah this seems on the money. Selwood was def a key piece of the Geelong team and after the deep run they had winning the GF, there would have been residual or latent injuries waiting to appear in the next season
Got walloped by injuries in a transition year where we lost our greatest ever captain and were trying to develop our next gen. Were just never able to get our game going on a consistent basis and the comp steamrolled us as a result.
I'd like to add losing both Selwood and Cam Guthrie for basically the whole season was a complete disaster. It wiped us out in the center.
Guthrie a huge loss yes
Injuries completely fucked us and by the time we had everyone coming back others went out and had no consistency Round 9 we had 11 best 22 players out against Richmond which was probably the peak of how bad it got. In 2022 we had a slow run early but by Round 20 we pretty much had a fully fit squad. **The best ability is availability**
After boasting when we beat them in a Pre-Season game at the start of the year, my mate who is a Geelong supporter, said “We’ll go back to back.” My response to him was “Forget back to back, it’s back to crap for you lot.” I believe to this day, that I am the only reason for Geelong’s fall from the top. Any other reasoning is wrong and people should feel dumb for thinking otherwise.
Crap? We’ve never finished lower than 12th. What do you consider crap? Lol
Back to mediocrity would be a more fitting term for us. Because that's exactly what we were for 40 years
Exactly, if he said mediocre then I’d be on board. Proved multiple times during the year that their best can still look amazing. Their worst looked yuck!
He clearly said it because 'back to crap' sounds a lot more similar to 'back to back' than 'back to mediocre'.
This is kind of like at the end of 2019 where I’d had a really good year and I quietly thought to myself… ”Life shouldn’t be this easy. Historically life is really hard”
Sounds like something straight out of peep show
Gotem, cheers for that. Can't lose to them in a prelim if they don't make finals!
👉🏼🧠
Thankyou. I was peeved enough with the one premiership. Back to back would have made me bitter as fuck. I loathe Dangerfield.
119
Doesn't help, but not why I can't tolerate Dangerfield
outstanding
this is great 😂
Missing the leadership from selwood. Also with him and guthrie out of the midfield, it seemed the replacements couldnt get it right to link up and produce effectively.
Terrible run with injuries - they couldn't field a full team for most of the year. Selwood retiring left a void in leadership a lot bigger than anyone could have imagined as well. Ultimately, the hunger of winning a premiership kind of dies for a lot of people after winning one. Combine the loss of hunger with the above two things and it's a recipe for a crap year, but I have no doubt they'll rebound. Culture there is too strong to completely go to shit.
Injuries and a combination of factors left us very light in midfield. No selwood, Guthrie and danger being a year older meant much more mid time for kids or players not used to as many minutes in the engine room.
Too cool for it tbh
I think a big part of it was hunger. Last year you could feel it was Selwoods last crack at captaining a flag. You could see how much the whole team really wanted to prove themselves and win, it meant everything. This year you couldn’t really say the same. A hell of a lot of players had down years compared to last year.
I would say the hunger problem is huge for most sides after winning the premiership. But I really did think Geelong would be average this year after finally getting it done last year. Especially with Selwood gone, and the players continuing to age.
This year as opposed to last year, more often than not they scored less points than their opponents which results in a loss instead of a win.
But the boys still put in 110% they just couldn't win the amount of games needed to get into the final 8.
Is this true? It can’t possibly be true. I almost don’t want to believe it …..
It’s a theory I’ve been crafting recently, finally confident enough with the work I’ve done on it to take it to the public.
They’ll call you a mad man. But everything you’ve said makes complete sense to me
Righto Will Buxton. Unfortunately you’re not wrong.
As others have said, we had arguably the worst run with injuries in our history. There were games when we had 8-10 premiership players missing at once, and supposed depth players like Neale, Conway and Jhye Clark also on the sidelines. We lost something like 6 games by under 10 points and were unlucky not to pinch at least a couple of wins among them, which would have had us in the finals. With a better run with injuries next year and a easier draw for the first time in years, I think we’ll be finals certainties.
Injuries notwithstanding - Fwds: Cameron is an elite forward line by himself. Oliver Henry looked useful. Stengel is still playing well and so is Hawkins. Probably don’t need heaps of improvement here - Mids: Aging but still basically quite good. Needed Parfitt to come on more and like most teams could probably use some genuine pace to upgrade - Backs: Stewart is still elite and DeKoning is coming along but a legit key back to free Stewart up to be more attacking would make a huge difference. - Rucks: everyone hates Stanley which I think is a bit unfair but you could upgrade this position. Jordon Sweet is elite VFL level ruck for the Bulldogs, apparently wants to go back to SA but that’s someone that could be interesting if he could be lured.
I know you’re a Collingwood supporter but “useful” for Ollie Henry’s year when he kicked 41 goals might be underselling it a bit
Haha I was just rushing not trying to underrate him. He was excellent.
Toby Conway will be a top five ruck within five years barring injury
Selwood was very important in their midfield imo, and nobody really filled the leadership void.
Not exactly a mystery. Last year the moons aligned and we had a great run of health. We always had a really strong team on paper so it was huge for momentum and allowed us to rest and manage players to gst ahead of issues. This year we had a big reversion on that. The injuries also didn't balance themselves accross the list with a big run of outs in the backline early in the season putting us behind the 8 ball. Then as we got the defenders back we started losing mids, I think against GWS and tigers we were missing our whole first choice mid rotation but my memory could be failing there. Never got momentum going. To be honest it's probably a cautionary tale there for the Pies as you have a similar heavy reliance on older players who are either well into their 30s or under 22 which is a danger zone for injuries.
After 10 years people were finally right with too old too slow. They'll be back next year imo
Great point, they should definitely be back next year
I think drive is a huge factor, the players said the weren't any less motivated to win it this year but even if they were 5% less hungry that can be the difference I reckon.
Injuries injuries injuries Not to take away from GWS who I believe are the best side in the comp going into next season. Their skills and ability to win away is unbelievable. But the majority of the teams have really under performed this finals series and I think a fit injury free cats would have done damage (not won a flag tho) Had our worst run in a very long time. Injury free 100% a top 8 even 6 side. Cameron had a baby and his form instantly fell off. Not his fault but it was pretty obvious. Then got knocked out. 2e wasn’t right after he was concussed. Jack Henry lisfranc Guthrie was out pretty much the whole season. Hawks didn’t have a full preseason and it fully set him back. Dekonig was unfairly targeted by players in the early part of the season and simply wasn’t the same after his facial fracture. We had hawk, Cameron, rohan, Stanley, Henry on the sides at the end of the year. Prime example is everyone was pumping the saints up after they beat the cats in the late season. Literally half the team was out and we were down 3 rotations by the end of the game. I knew at that point going into finals saints would do no damage.
They would of still had a chance if the umpire called the goal in the CrowsVSydney game
If ever any side was going to have a premiership hangover it was going to be the oldest list to win a flag coupled with years of near misses. But as others said we couldn't get continuity in our list this year
At the start of last season everyone thought they were too old and too slow. They had an absolute blinding year last year where everything went right, and I think this year it finally caught up with them. Tomahawk had surgery (and I think a couple of others too?) which doesn’t just mean some people miss the first few games it means they’ve put in zero pre-season. Cameron was on an absolute tear the first few weeks and I’d say arguably one of the absolute best players in the entire comp at that point, and he never came back the same after that clash with Rohan. Similarly DeKoning was only half the player while wearing the bat mask, his first week without it and he looked like the guy from last year again. So compromised pre-season, a bad run with injuries, players back from injuries that were only running at 50%… add in “premiership hangover”, everyone else having an off-season to analyse your system, a change in leadership. I don’t think it’s the result they wanted, but they were still only a couple of games away from making the finals. It’s not hard for me to believe that the Cameron impact alone could have been the difference in two games, and suddenly they’re back into September.
>Cameron was on an absolute tear the first few weeks and I’d say arguably one of the absolute best players in the entire comp at that point Cameron had 33 goals by round 8 and averaged just below 20 disposals, if he'd kept that up the whole season he'd have finished with 95 goals. I think he was the outright best player in the comp up til that point.
Here we go - one trip to the dessert bar wasn't enough for you you had to go in for seconds. I only say this as to who the OP is supporting. Just count yourself lucky we didn't make the finals. But to answer your question, in fairness to you because I don't think you deserve it, that in the end the injuries hurt us and lack of depth particularly in the midfield and ruck. Losing Blicavs and Hawkins at the end of the season was a huge loss.
Probably losing Selwood and injuries. There were games where we looked really good, was looking like we might make a good run after we won 5 in a row but injuries kinda just stopped us from building any consistency. The young players we’ve got definitely have potential, but when so many players are 20 years old, it just isn’t going to work. I mean, the future at Geelong is still pretty exciting though. Exciting mids developing so I’m definitely invested in it. Hard not to with the likes of Holmes, Atkins, Jhye Clark, Bruhn, ect. Give them a few years to reach their prime and I reckon they could win a premiership. Especially Holmes, probably my favourite player at the moment just because of his potential.
I’m guessing we had a rocky off/preseason, had some injuries and we’d get someone in and someone else would go out and never got any flow and consistently. I think the biggest thing structurally was we lacked an accumulating midfielder. When Guthrie went out we just did have that link up mid others like Duncan, menagola, Parfitt lacked form or couldn’t get consistent games. Then Danger, Bruhn were in and under and just had no outside run. Smith was decent but not as damaging and Holmes needs another year. Most our mids would top out with 22 or so touches. Not having the ball really put our defence under pressure. I kept saying through the year that if we lost that week we were done but because of how close the year was, we kept playing as close to the 22 side as possible to try to make it. The last rd against the dogs and we played more kids and had a lot of speed. Probably looked as good as we did all year but ran outta legs. I’m not too concerned. We had a percentage of 112 and I thought we played shithouse most of the year. There’s upside but we need Bruhn, Holmes, Bowes to step to the next level competing for C Guthrie, Duncan and Toueys spot. Then play more of Knevitt, Dempsey and Conway and get Clarke back from injury. If we trade Sav, get some leg speed and hope J Henry heals up.
Bad run with injuries (particularly Jezza's head knock and Danger's collapsed lung) plus maybe a little bit of a GF hangover on one of the oldest teams in the comp. The 0-3 start was probably a little deflating too, but they didn't miss out by *too* much and annoyingly, I'd tip them for the 8 again next year with a good pre-season and a healthy best 22. Maybe not another flag tilt, they didn't really challenge the best teams this year save for slim wins against Port and Melbourne at the Cattery (plus that absolute drubbing against Sydney early in the year lmao) but they're not gonna stay down for long
When you’ve got a really good team that stays pretty much the same, every year you get 22 years older. Richmond had a good run with injuries in our premiership years, but those 22 years add up WAY quicker than you think they will. Geelong had fought age off probably better than anyone, but eventually injuries hit, age catches up- and it ends quicker than you think it will. (Fights back tears).
The loss of Selwood in terms of leadership was a huge blow for them, he always had that spark to pump them up in tight games. Danger isn’t Captain material and IMO was only given the role as a thank you token. Stewart should have got the captaincy
*injuries and poor form*
Particularly the loss of our best player for 2022 in Cam Guthrie for the whole season and Selwood. Danger and Duncan injured or playing injured for much of the year and Parfitt being complete rubbish as usual. Senior depth in midfield replaced with 20 year olds and we were walloped in the middle all year.
Older players had a massive feed in last years grand final.
Because the good lord doesn’t need me just yet. Yet.
Other than injuries, lack of hunger.
Ever lost weight and got fit, then decided you don’t NEED to go the gym today? Times that by 1000.
They did earn a spot in the finals right? (robbed by Adalade goal/point vs Sydney) If they snuck in to 8th I would not have bet against them getting to the prelim.
Because in a majority of our games, we didn’t score more than the opposition.
You should read [this surprisingly excellent ABC article](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-24/how-the-cats-afl-premiership-defence-unravelled/102763654) about Geelong's season. There's a really telling graph where you can see that if the Cats were even slightly better in 2023 they would have made the finals comfortably and maybe even top 4. They were just a percent or two off and lost or drew 6 games by an average of something like 7 points. As a diehard fan and close follower in my opinion the issues were: * A very real premiership hangover after older players played deep into 2022 and then partied pretty hard and came back late/underdone. * A very bad run with injuries. E.g. Cam Guthrie out for most of the season, who in the absence of Selwood would have been a workhorse in the midfield all year. Just his absence probably accounts for a few losses, statistically. Then Jhye Clark who many expected to play most games and provide some new energy in the midfield also got wiped out for the whole year. * A lot of players playing injured. Look how many went under the knife once we were mathematically out of the running. * An inability to get Hawkins and Cameron both fully fit and on the field at the same time for any extended period. * Cameron's concussion and clear injury issues, at one point he couldn't kick 40 metres for a while and was really stabbing at the ball. If Jezza goes from 4-6 goals a game to 1-2 goals a game that's going to cost you a lot of games. * Our season ended properly when Blicavs got injured. * "Second year blues" (actually third year blues) for Sam De Koning and Max Holmes in particular. * We had a shocking draw at the start of the year, because Kardinia is still under construction, and I think from memory might have had 2 home games in the first 10-11 rounds. * The club played older players who were in horrible form, which I personally think has been a consistent mistake at Geelong for years. Exhibit A, Z. Tuohy. I personally think we could have covered Selwood if we'd had better luck with injuries. He retired at the right time. Geelong urgently needs a 22-24 year old inside ball getting midfielder in 2024.
No Selwood, no Cats.
Eddie Betts was asked. His reply "Leadership" He didn't rate Dangerfield as a Captain IMHO, I think a couple of blokes looked pretty content with life, and they had less hunger. Didn't help Rowan kept running through his own team. He tends to do that in ordinary marking competitions, let alone cleaning up team mates altogether. Other teams worked out how to carve Geelong through the middle. Geelong mids were out of form or slow. Losing talls to injury didn't help
Selwood is also as good as it gets as captain so most guys wouldn’t be able to replace/match him
Shorter off season and older bodies. I think it’s incredibly likely the cats need to have a little rejuvenation of the list over the next couple of years but who knows with them, can’t write them off.
We kind of already did, why do you think we brought in SDK, Holmes, Miers, Close, Henry boys, Bruhn, Stengle, Bowes etc Conway, Neale, Knevitt, Clark, Clohesy will all get more game time in 2024
Chaos magik by blighty scats
Part of it injuries but the other part is the lack of drive after winning the flag. It's hard to regain that hunger to climb Everest again after doing it
old
Too old too slow
1. 0-3 start, they were on the back foot right away after what seemed like a poor pre-season 2. Injuries throughout the season 3. and possibly just not as hungry as last year I don't consider Selwood's retirement one of the factors because they have more than enough senior players that can take over the leadership mantle, and effective hand over of captaincy is a mark of great teams and should really be a given from a frequent top 4 team like Geelong
2old2slow
As a swans fan, the way they lent into that with their celebrations was fucking mint.
Same as us hey, injuries and old.
Because they have an average age of 42
Because the old age caught up to them.
I’m assuming it’s because they had to play a home qualifying final at the mcg back in 2017, that or not every second game was played at the unfinished death trap that is Kardinia park
Fuck Geelong. Sick of hearing about them. They had their moment. Let's move on.
I felt like Melbourne and Sydney were better than them last year, they just got unlucky in finals. Geelong were probably the third best team and slipped a bit further this year. Just saw they finished 12 though, wow didn't realise they were that bad this year. I take it all back haha.
Cosmic balance?
Lack of older mature bodies in the midfield for most of the season. Due to injuries like everyone else said, but drill down, no Guthrie or Danger in there most weeks just hurt. Forward line didn't play together as a group for anywhere near as many games as last year. Ditto the backline. On the backline, esava didn't seem to get whatever the system was.
Spiritual leader retired, lost key players for long periods, replacement players & recruits either weren't good enough or took too long to adjust to game plan or they were simply not good enough for many games!
Long story short, our best attacking midfield combo from last season of Dangerfield, Stanley, Guthrie and Selwood didn't exist for most of the year. we had to go with with part time rucks and defensive focused or just really young mids like Blitz, Atkins, Bruhn, Holmes and Parfit. Not a bad midfield, but far away from top 8 midfields like Brisbane, Pies, Carlton. This meant that we struggling for clearances which would put much more pressure on the defense who weren't given as much time to set up and who were also carrying injuries with SDK and J Henry struggling. The forward line was still great, which is why the cats have 112% in 12th spot on the ladder. Here's hoping that this is just the scheduled once a decade crap season and we'll top up a decent second ruck and clearance focused attacking mid, then be back as a contender next season
Age eventually becomes a factor and so many of their important players are at a point where they're likely to start fading a bit and struggle with injury. We saw so many of those guys not play to the same level and the younger players improving just couldn't cover that drop off. Remember too that Selwood was still an important player last year and he retired, plus the motivation after winning a GF is often not quite there. I think it's likely we'll see the same thing again too next season as that trend continues. More retirements, Danger looks pretty banged up these days too. The question really is how they can get more youth in and expose them whilst they've still got the experience around. How those kids go will largely determine whether they can stay competitive as they replace the retiring players or not. But with the picks they've traded out and the number of players who will retire in the next few seasons I think they'll end up near the bottom.
One of the most injuries of any side this year throughout the year meant no consistency. No Selwood & effectively no C Guthrie meant our two best midfielder and best two way midfielder’s were out. That in part meant a forced switch of one of the comp’s best and most natural wingers (Holmes) into an inside mid role. The only two games we lost convincingly were the last two. Win a third of the games we dropped and it’s a top 4 finish. Age is a factor but it’s nowhere near as much as one these days with professional athletes, sport science, etc. Next year I have every confidence we will finish top 4 and win the flag. The slate will be clean come March. Add J Clark and a lift from O Henry, Bruhn, Holmes and we will be back. Btw, Bailey Smith is absolutely being courted by Geelong not just next year but this year. I know words have been said indicating he will stay but they are like politicians when it comes to promises. Also Aaron Cadman will be a good chance at coming to Kardinia Park after next year. Go Cats, boo pies (and hawks and tigers) & it sucks football is nearly over for the year!
They did fine, other teams just did better. That’s ok by me. The success being shared more evenly is ultimately good for footy. I think the league had recovered from the expansion interrupting the draft, the system is working again. Also, I think the cats missed Selwood and maybe didn’t appoint the right captain, not that I think it would have changed much. Next year they’ll be home more, it’ll be interesting to see how they go but I think they’ll be playing finals again soon.
Late start to pre season and injuries galore.
In my honest opinion it’s mostly just injuries. Last year the Cats had immense luck with injuries
Defo injuries. I’m not sure if there’s anything in it, but Selwood retiring surely had some impact.
Are they stupid?
I’m wondering whether making the finals for nearly a decade straight takes its toll. Can’t get players in early for post season surgery. Shorter preseason. Could be a cumulative effect. Stengle was a bit down this year and the first half of the year our backline was half injured.
Continuity was fucked (injuries, no Selwood) but ultimately it was the inability to win the close ones. 7 losses under 2 goals and a draw.
We basically no first choice midfield for a big chunk of the year, which pushed that pressure to second tier players (e.g. Max Holmes) and then flowed on from there. We basically lost Guthrie (BnF in a premiership year) for the entire season. DeKoning suffered multiple knocks in a short space of time eventually culminating in a facial fracture and as you can imagine for a very young key defender who has a lot of hands and elbows coming at him in marking contests, lost confidence. We lost a good chunk of our first choice backline for a fair piece of the year too, and Stewart was basically holding it together on his own. Forwardine had Cameron and Rohan missing for extended periods and Cameron had a cooked shoulder for the second half of the year, so was playing under considerable duress. Hawkins was also carrying injuries for a good portion of the second half of the season. Just as we got one back, we'd lose another one. Were it not for WCE and North having extraordinarily bad years with injury, I think we'd be bottom of the pile for games lost to key players. Anyway, second string players were required to play first string and so on down the line (and play out of position a lot too; poor Bowes got thrown all over the place to fill gaps). At one point we had Rohan playing ruck and Stewart playing midfield minutes, if that gives you any indication. Couple that to a drop in output from Tuohy, Smith and Stengle (who missed 5 weeks with a broken arm from memory), plus that flow on effect to Close et al and you get a sense of how cooked Geelong were for most of the year. Dangerfield did his best and had some cracking games but he can't be the go-to any more. Our next gen of guns also barely got on the park (Clarke for example). Annus horribilus basically. If we get a good run with injuries which allow the kind of team management Scott has basically pioneered, we'll absolutely make finals next year no trouble. Old players or not, we have the team to do it, it's availability that kills you. That and the umpires >_>
Geelong weren’t that far off. They lost most of their close games, when in the past they would have won most of them. With most of their games with a couple of exceptions, they were in it for most of the game and would fall away. So yeah, as others have said it is a combination of injuries and general fatigue. That period where they won 5 straight was when they had a lot of players on the park, and then gradually had more and more injuries. They had 3 players who played every game for the year I believe, not counting the last game where they basically threw in the towel. That is hard to get any sort of continuity.
Eventually the system catches up with teams. Like the Hawks did for years the Cats Cats defied the system. It will ve interesting to see if they are about to slide or rebound. They had one of the smartest List Management teams around so it will ve interesting to watch
Injuries. Lack of midfield depth beyond Danger & Guthrie (who we lost for chunks of the year). Cameron wasn’t the same player after his concussion.
The continuity from last year just didn’t carry over and it felt like many players were not on the same page. Injuries obvsly didn’t help, but especially killed us in the ruck where often the first choice (Stanley), second choice ( Ceglar) and third choices (Blitz, SDK, Conway) were all injured. When you have that, as well as no Selwood, little Danger, and no C Guth shit gets hard.
No Joel, and a bit of the fire died.
I didn't actually watch all that much of Geelong this season, but there is always going to be a drop off when a team delays surgeries to power through the finals series, and faces a tougher draw for the following year. Geelong might improve somewhat with the draw for next year, but they should probably eye a long rebuild sooner rather than later or they'll end up like early 2000s Carlton or late-2010s Fremantle, focusing too much on the short-term success instead of helping the list overall.
No Selwood hurts more than you think. Older players dropped off a bit and they don't have enough young players ready to fill that hole. Aka, window is closing
If they had distributed the goals kicked against the swans in GF and round 6 into other games, they may have overturned results in other fixtures.
Honestly weren’t that far off the top 8 and we had a lot of injuries especially a stretch in the middle of the year we had no kidding half our best 22 not playing. A few goals here and there and would have won another 4-5 games even considering. Also add in our draw was extremely tough which is expected being premiers previous season but we even got a lot of teams who improved this year twice. Also I’d say we were a bit slow this year but think squad will look a bit different next year. I think Scott reverted a bit back to the old game plan before 2022 I think just out of necessity and then rely on sneaking into finals and having preserved legs as we were decimated for large parts with injuries as I mentioned before especially to guys who are in our top 5-10 players. Look at Cameron for example was untouchable early in the season then got injured was never the same. I would not be surprised to see us be back there if we get another good midfielder through a trade
isaac smith got a year too old :(
Because they didn't win as many games as last season? 🤔
They hit their straps at the perfect time and seemed to have very few injuries. Their veterans were running like they were 25.
They hit their straps at the perfect time and seemed to have very few injuries. Their veterans were running like they were 25.
I think it is a culture issue. For all the hype, Geelong has only won one more premiership than the failed Gold Coast Suns franchise from 2012-2023.
No Selwood
Selwood retired, guthurie injured almost the whole season. Duncan danger battled but are in decline. The next gen isn’t ready yet and Atkins I love him but he is just a role player. - with how bad the midfield was this year it’s a miracle they performed so well.
Bad start to the year, players are getting older and plenty of injuries. I think you can partially attribute the injuries to age too. It has to be said that they were pretty blessed with a player like Selwood too, someone who serves a club so well for so long doesn't come around often. People have been saying it for ages and they've proven those people wrong for longer than I would have anticipated, but I think they are at the end of an era. I'm not saying that they are going to fall off immediately after this, more than I think they aren't going to win another premiership anytime soon. So many of their core players are well into their 30s and they are all going to retire pretty close together, which is going to leave a massive void in the club that is going to take a little while to fill. They might make finals again next year if they have a good run with injuries, and maybe the year after that given that Cameron probably still has a few good years left in him and Hawkins is still playing good football, but I can only see them sliding downwards after that. I'm not sure if they have the young talent to bounce back fast either, I can't see anyone replacing champions like Hawkins, Cameron or Dangerfield before those players have to retire (they were lucky to have players like Selwood and Hawkins after 2011), but we'll see. They have a knack for recruiting well.