El Caballa Rojo

Friday night, as Geelong battled Collingwood to within a 50m penalty of victory, I was in a basement, listening to a band that hadn’t played together for 11 years. The score updates I was graciously receiving from a friend, picked up in frequency and intensity during the frantic final quarter: “A goal in it. It’s living in our fifty.” But no matter the depth of my belief, and the enthusiasm of my replies, The Cats came up short.

As music that was first released in 1999 was amazingly recreated in 2012, I was reminded that everything has a context. And that often that context isn’t revealed until after the fact.

No one knows what the hard games are until they play them. Adelaide wasn’t expected to be this good. Melbourne wasn’t expected to be this bad. The draw may look daunting for The Cats going forward but good teams only become good retroactively, that is, by beating other teams. 

There are currently three free hits in the AFL; Gold Coast, GWS and Melbourne. And last year’s bad teams get a couple of extra licks of that ice-cream. Meanwhile, the good teams are taking points off each other more often, resulting in a logjam of seemingly average teams.

Geelong is currently 10^th on the ladder, but only one win and percentage off being 6^th. Losing to a quality opponent, in round 8, by essentially a kick, is not so bad. As long as they can also beat a few quality opponents, that is.

Now on to the questions…

(All thanks for all the offerings. If I missed yours, and if y'all want to, we'll do it again later in the year. Much appreciated.)

Regarding the future role of Taylor Hunt, potential Ling 2.0, Enright 2.0 or Wojo 2.0?

- fustercluck

He started in a Wojo-type role, I don’t think he has the disposal and decision making to take Enright’s job and at the moment he doesn’t win as much of his own ball as Ling did. But he is firmly the no. 1 tagger now and has shown some good signs, and they say the best way to learn is to follow the best players around for a few years. I see him ending up somewhere around Andrew Carrazzo.

James Hird's Excellence / Piss Ratio (JHEPR), greater in 2012 than 2000?

- J. Michael "The Love Train" Howell, Jupiter FLA

I’m surprised we haven’t yet had a plethora of “How Hirdy turned the Dons around” articles. I mean, it’s gotta be coming, right? This weekend? Both papers? One of those centerfold-of-sports-section type deals where they highlight a few quotes and include the full colour photos? Or does everyone else just assume like me that Bomber Thompson has his hand up his ass?

How long will the Cats' form need to slump for before the usual suspects get the nerve to trot out the "end of an era/I told you so" columns (again)?

-  atilla

Start? It hasn’t stopped for five years.

Cameron Guthrie, do you like his poise and can you see a future for him as a slow-ish but capable good decision maker down back, good overhead, a Milburn-esque type without the brass knuckles?

- fustercluck

Woody has shown some really good signs and has been one of the best of the under 50-gamers. His disposal is a little shaky at times but his poise and decision-making (as you mentioned) are impressive for such an inexperienced player. A couple of players come to mind when projecting forward; worst case he’s a Steve Hocking career back pocket, best case he’s Joel Corey Junior and realistically he’s probably somewhere in between, say… Brad Scholl? Which leads us to our next question…

Who's the best player out of the new breed at the moment? Any of them likely to be 200 game players?

- The B Man

The above-mentioned Guthrie looks good, Smedts has had more wraps than pass the parcel (sorry) and Allen Christensen is looking every bit of an AFL midfielder. But my personal favourite is Mitch “Fletch” Duncan. He plays well in big games, goes inside and outside, runs all day and looks like he wants to be great (as much as it’s possible for me to gather a complicated read on his psyche). Most of all, he kicks straight for goal and he wants to take the kick for goal. Watch this clip of the third quarter of the 2011 Grand Final. In the middle of a two-point game Duncan gets a handball from Bartel (after Stokes, was mauled and no free kick, but I digress) and begins a run towards the 50m line. A senior teammate (Varcoe) calls for the ball to his left. Fletch looks over his shoulder, thinks, “Naaaah, I got this” and then drills a goal right down the pipe from 50. Fkn Gold.

Who's the most annoying player in the AFL? Any one of Ballantyne, Milne, Franklin, Crowley, Tex Walker or is there someone else you'd like to belt more?

-  The B Man

I’ll let Mrs. Watson field this one.

“Mitch Robinson was that undiagnosed ADHD kid at high school that no-one could bare, never shut the fuck up, but somehow got invited to every party where he’d creepily stand just outside each circle of friends and ruin every punch line. He plays football now, but somehow gets fewer high fives and has still never had (consensual) sex.”

What you put the slump down to; senior players going through the motions a bit, too many young players with no experience in the team, or both?

- The B Man

And here it is; the $64 million dollar question. There are definitely some young players getting games with an eye to future seasons rather than the 2012 finals series. I can’t see Jesse Stringer “Bell”, for instance, playing a prominent role in the flag defense, in 2014 perhaps, but not this year. Similarly, Billy “Jimmy” Smedts, George “The Great Gatsby” Horlin-Smith, Steven Motlop, Mitch Brown and Tom Gillies won’t be in the side should the Cats be lucky enough to go deep into September again.

And, as I alluded to a couple blogs back, that driving motivation to will oneself to every contest at 100 miles an hour (which Essendon and Adelaide have at the moment) might not be there for The Cats at this stage. It’s hard to stay focused for so long when the business end of the season is so far away and one views the home and away matches as merely qualifying.

Also, they’re missing Ottens. West has been very good carrying the ruck by himself, but the Cats looked a lot better with Stephenson there to help out. Orren looked ok in his second game, and considering Geelong tinkered with and then settled on two rucks last year, it’s obviously something they’re still thinking about. Is Dawson Simpson the answer? I doubt it. Vardy would be handy, but he’ll be on ice until next year. If Stephenson can stand up, it will make a big difference.

The big problem, and everyone knows it, is that they simply aren’t winning enough contested ball. This has never been a problem in the past, in fact, it’s been one of the greatest things about this team, their ability to win the contested situations that can force a team over the line (see, Grand Final, 2009). Does this automatically improve as we get closer to finals? Is there some magic switch that the players (except Joel Selwood) are waiting to flip? Let's hope so.

Please refer to previous post.


Now, how about some questions, Big Leaguers? If we get enough I’ll prepare the answers for the week after the Collingwood game (and I’ll even try to convince Mrs Watson to answer a few as well). Fire away in the comments section!

Great Expectations

For the past 5 years my friends and I have appreciated the absolute luxury of watching football each weekend and expecting to win. No, something more than just expecting to win, it was more assuming it was a done deal and only a matter of by how much and how stylish and economically it could all be done. How slick would the midfield look? Who would Steve Johnson make look stupid? Would we get to see Geelong play “the Geelong way” and for how long? It was a giddy feeling. Introducing yourself to new people was always fun when the talk turned to football; “Who do you go for?” they’d ask, and a split second before answering, an involuntary shit-eating grin would give the game away. It was, and is, a good time to be a Cats fan.

The better you perform, however, the more you are expected to perform. All AFL teams are somewhere along this spectrum. Some, like GWS, Melbourne and Gold Coast, are at the very bottom, where honourable losses are seen as moral victories, and coming up short is a learning experience that builds character. Most teams are somewhere in the middle; Essendon wasn’t expected to beat Carlton, North Melbourne wasn’t expected to beat Geelong. That they both lost the following week was no great surprise to anyone.

The Cats, meanwhile, are at the very top, or end, of this spectrum and have been for a long time. For five years every team in the competition has been using Geelong as a measuring stick, “getting themselves up” for The Cats, essentially treating the game as a final. They’ve copied their game style, invented tactics to counter it, stolen players, coaches, assistant coaches, fitness and support staff. The challenges and the challengers keep coming.

Mentally, this is as fatiguing as anything physically that is thrown at the players. Geelong looked undisciplined against Freo, uninterested against North Melbourne and unenthusiastic against Richmond; all signs of a team not yet fully invested. And this might very well be the case.

The expectation from outside is that The Cats will drop off – they have to. The expectation from Geelong supporters is that they should be flogging teams every week, like ’07 and ’08. Internally, I get the feeling the expectations changed some time ago.

What The Cats learned, painfully in 2008, and then masterfully demonstrated in 2011 (and to a lesser extent 2009) is that you don’t need to be the best team all year, you just need to have the best finals series. And that’s not to say that these things are mutually exclusive, but Geelong no longer risks one for the sake of the other. The Cats know winning is worth 4 points, be it an ugly scrap or a coach-killing belting.

So expect some games where they look a bit flat. Expect them to take the foot of the gas in the fourth quarter. Expect plenty of inexperience in the team. And don’t expect them to finish on top of the ladder. But make no mistake, Geelong’s training, list management and playing strategies and structures will all be aimed towards peaking in September and October, not April and May. Make sure your expectations do too.