Game Day 2022 Grand Final: Geelong vs Sydney

[edgie]

Shades of 2007. Collingwood supporters and Vic media keep telling us the Geelong 92 v Collingwood 87 PF should have been the GF.

Nobody knows if Collingwood would have finally been busted open by a Geelong side that has lost so many PF's in the last decade.

How did that work out for Collingwood in 2011?

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[bomberclifford]

Collingwood get to claim another hypothetical Premiership.

Like clockwork.

 

[Sewer de Lance]

I mentioned Western Victoria in an earlier post today. They target players from there and other small towns, especially those who have played for Geelong Falcons, as well as have a mix of kids from the city.

Jeremy Cameron is from Dartmoor - in between Portland and Mt Gambier played for North Ballarat U/18
Dangerfeld is from near Geelong, played for the Geelong Falcons U/18
Tom Stewart played for Geelong Falcons didn't get drafted then played a few years for South Barwon in Geelong Football League, drafted at 23
Jack Henry played for Geelong Falcons
Gary Rohan played for Geelong Falcons
Tom Atkins played for Geelong based old scholars team St Joseph's, then became a supplementary player on Geelong's VFL team before being drafted when he was 24.
Gryan Meirs played for Geelong Falcons

Joel Selwood - raised in Bendigo played for Bendigo Pioneers U/18

Father Sons
Tom Hawkins from Riverina area near Finley, just over NSW border, he did board at Melbourne Grammar
Jeb Bews - Grew up in Geelong, played for the Geelong Falcons

Brad Close - grew up in Mt Gambier then played at Glenelg
Jake Kolodjashnij grew up and played footy in Launceston which is a smaller town than Geelong
Brandan Parfitt is from Darwin
Isaac Smith is country NSW boy, Cootamundra. was at Uni of Ballarat studying and playing North Ballart in VFL when Hawks drafted him at 21.
Rhys Stanley is from Berri and was picked up by West Adelaide as a junior before drafted by St Kilda.

Mark O'Connor from a small coastal town in County Kerry Ireland
Zac Touhey played Gaelic football for Portlaoise which is a town of about 25,000 people in Ireland.

So a philosophy started by Stephen Wells and backed by Prez of a dozen years Frank Costa, and Brian Cook as 20+ year CEO, they have targeted Geelong Falcons players and country Vic players, and other guys from small towns go Geelong and feel very comfortable there.

The Geelong model would be a good one for Tassie to follow in their developing years. Try and get 1/3rd or so of the squad who played for the Tassie Mariners U/18 team, so they feel comfortable playing for Tassie as well as recruit a few ex Tassie boys back home.

Hey REH, you’re an absolute stalwart when it comes to PAFC history. Was the Eyre Peninsula our most successful recruiting ground? I know the great man came from the Riverland, but I do recall we’ve had some fine footballers come from out west.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Hey REH, you’re an absolute stalwart when it comes to PAFC history. Was the Eyre Peninsula our most successful recruiting ground? I know the great man came from the Riverland, but I do recall we’ve had some fine footballers come from out west.

We didnt get Eyre Peninsula as a zone until 1970. We got a lot of players from there after that but we got players from everywhere before 1970.

Edit country zone only started in the SANFL in 1970. We got the furthest away, West Torrens got Tea Tree Gully and Golden Grove.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

Hey REH, you’re an absolute stalwart when it comes to PAFC history. Was the Eyre Peninsula our most successful recruiting ground? I know the great man came from the Riverland, but I do recall we’ve had some fine footballers come from out west.

Port Premiership country players I have seen play (not absolutely sure on the origins of a couple, happy to be corrected)

Riverland
Russell Ebert
Bruce Light

Yorke Peninsula
Ivan Eckermann
Tony Giles
Kym Curtis

Eyre Peninsula
Len Warren
Greg Phillips
Danny Hughes
Darren Smith
David Hynes
Geoff Phelps
Darryl Borlase
Brett Chalmers
Simon Pedler
Troy Olsen
Darryl Wakelin
Darren Mead
Peter Burgoyne
Shaun Burgoyne
Byron Pickett
Nigel Fiegert

Kangaroo Island
Brendon Lade

There were also quite a number who didn't experience absolute success.

 

[Rexie J]

South East
John McBain (Naracoorte)

 

[Igavemyloveachicken]

What Geelong proves to me is that it's more important to build your club into a perennial challenger that always has a shot of winning a flag than it is to try to build some bullshit 'dynastic' team that could possibly win X amount of flags in a Y amount of years because that's how Brisbane circa 2001-2004, Geelong circa 2007-2011, Hawthorn circa 2012-2015 and Richmond circa 2017-2020 did it.

Geelong didn't recruit for a distant future. They kept looking at what they needed to improve their list every year and set about targeting those areas of improvement, and they weren't afraid to pay the price when it came to attracting quality talent like Cameron to their club. The problem is, in order to use this sort of strategy, you have to have a list that already has what it takes to win flags.

Isaac Smith won the Norm Smith medal - he had already won 3 flags previously with Hawthorn.
Tom Hawkins kicked goals when needed - he had already won 2 flags previously with Geelong.
Joel Selwood knew what had to be done - he had already won 3 flags previously with Geelong.
Mitch Duncan knew what had to be done - he had already won a flag with Geelong.

Then you've got:

Patrick Dangerfield (8x AA, Brownlow Medalist)
Cameron Guthrie (1x AA)
Tom Stewart (4x AA)
Jeremy Cameron (3x AA)
Mark Blicavs (1x AA)
Tyson Stengle (1x AA)

That's 10 players who can play to an elite level. Almost half their premiership team.

But nah, it's not talent.

Great teams make good players look great with Des Headland a prime example of that given his input at Brisbane in their great teams compared to his period at Fremantle.
Put Stengle in the majority of other teams this year and I'd argue he wouldn't be the same player.
The secret to Geelong this year was a lack of injuries and consistent form. Port Adelaide has had more than enough talent over the years but we have too many players that fluctuate from one season to the next.

 

[Andre]

That's a mistake. It was won at 133 and 33. You can also tell Smith wasn't drafted to Geelong. No way a player drafted there, at 33 still has a hairline or a forehead not bulging. All legit, nothing to see here.

 

[Festerz]

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

1 more year Buddy.

Warner had a huge last quarter but didn't realise it was this good. He obviously didn't make an error to record 16 pts. He saved Sydney from being beaten by 100+ pts. He kicked two from centre clearances in the last quarter.

Experience counts
Selwood 40th final
Hawkins 32nd
Smith... 26th
Dangerfield 26th
Duncan 26th
Rohan 26th
Blicavs 24th
Cam Guthrie 21st
Stanley 16th
Touhy 19th

The under 30's
Bews 18th
Cameron 13th
Kolodjashni 19th
Henry 16th
Stewart 14th
Parfitt 14th
Miers 13th

 

[DBrowJ]

1 more year Buddy.

Warner had a huge last quarter but didn't realise it was this good. He obviously didn't make an error to record 16 pts. He saved Sydney from being beaten by 100+ pts. He kicked two from centre clearances in the last quarter.

Experience counts
Selwood 40th final
Hawkins 32nd
Smith... 26th
Dangerfield 26th
Duncan 26th
Rohan 26th
Blicavs 24th
Cam Guthrie 21st
Stanley 16th
Touhy 19th

The under 30's
Bews 18th
Cameron 13th
Kolodjashni 19th
Henry 16th
Stewart 14th
Parfitt 14th
Miers 13th

I didn't watch much of it but good to see that Gary rohan showed up

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[Macca_1870]

Were worse than us in 2007 today.

Very very very lucky the Cats didn’t have their kicking boots on today.

Geelong had 43 scoring shots against us. Almost never does 119 looks glamorous, but god forbid they had their kicking boots on that day :/

 

[Lawnchair Larry]

You've got to wonder how long Geelong can keep this up.
To me it is absolutely unique.
Maybe it's a kind of subset of Moneyball.
Here are the age profile plots for the 2022 grand finalists and the age profiles for the Geelong 2007, 2009,2011 and 2022 premiership teams.
From recollection the median (50% on these plots) for premiership winners is about 27.
So Sydney is a tad too young
But Geelong is a tad too old.
Following the progression of their premierships over the years, there is a steady drift to more aged players in the upper age range.
Drafting at this top end of the age categories is really shrewd.
They must see that if they can keep this top end fit and healthy, then the combo of a slow feed in of younger players, coupled with these older blokes, is a real success story in the making for them.
Maybe all they need to do is pinch a couple of 27yo guys to keep the conveyor belt going, as well as drafting one or 2 young young blokes?
Making sure they capture these 27yo guys with a minimum of injury history must be critical, as well as sustaining the progression of their own guys into these older age ranges.

 

[Frank Hansen II]

I'm still recovering from the fact Sydney lost; don't they still have co-captains?

 

[JimmyBC]

There's a reason why the aging Geelong model only works once in a blue moon.

 

[Duckimus Prime]

I'm still recovering from the fact Sydney lost; don't they still have co-captains?

I think Sydney have co-Non-Captains. Everyone else is a captain.

 

[El_Scorcho]

There's a reason why the aging Geelong model only works once in a blue moon.

Yep, it worked because there wasn't any other genuinely strong sides to challenge them. The next best teams were a young Sydney side, a chancer Collingwood side and a Melbourne side who spent all year threatening but never quite put it together except, as usual, that one time against Port.

2007 was similar. Transition year for several other sides. We had a good year and bobbed up as the 2nd best side and got clobbered.

See also: 2021/22 Golden State Warriors.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Shades of 2007. Collingwood supporters and Vic media keep telling us the Geelong 92 v Collingwood 87 PF should have been the GF.

Nobody knows if Collingwood would have finally been busted open by a Geelong side that has lost so many PF's in the last decade.

One of the most bullshit narratives in modern football history.

They finished 6th with 100.95%. They beat a banged up Eagles side in the semi after a very average 2nd half of the season where they had a bunch of shit losses to non-finalists. They didn't play a side that finished above them twice, going 1-4 in those games, the win being a 3 point win over North in Round 1 where they had 7 less scoring shots.

We were the only side that beat Geelong after round 5, and beat every other side in the top 6 during the season to finish 2nd.

Geelong had their one game mental wobble hosting a PF at Collingwood's home ground, and Collingwood still to this day stake one of the most dubious claims of all time. Middling trash. We would have absolutely flogged them had they stolen that PF from Geelong.

 

[EskimoPAFC]

You've got to wonder how long Geelong can keep this up.
To me it is absolutely unique.
Maybe it's a kind of subset of Moneyball.
Here are the age profile plots for the 2022 grand finalists and the age profiles for the Geelong 2007, 2009,2011 and 2022 premiership teams.
From recollection the median (50% on these plots) for premiership winners is about 27.
So Sydney is a tad too young
But Geelong is a tad too old.
Following the progression of their premierships over the years, there is a steady drift to more aged players in the upper age range.
Drafting at this top end of the age categories is really shrewd.
They must see that if they can keep this top end fit and healthy, then the combo of a slow feed in of younger players, coupled with these older blokes, is a real success story in the making for them.
Maybe all they need to do is pinch a couple of 27yo guys to keep the conveyor belt going, as well as drating one or 2 young young blokes?
Making sure they capture these 27yo guys with a minimum of injury history must be critical, as well as sustaining the progression of their own guys into these older age ranges.
View attachment 1518796

When you have an outlier in any sporting competition, particularly when that outlier is based around older athletes, there is usually the same explanation for it.

 

[TeeKray]

Yep, it worked because there wasn't any other genuinely strong sides to challenge them. The next best teams were a young Sydney side, a chancer Collingwood side and a Melbourne side who spent all year threatening but never quite put it together except, as usual, that one time against Port.

2007 was similar. Transition year for several other sides. We had a good year and bobbed up as the 2nd best side and got clobbered.

See also: 2021/22 Golden State Warriors.

Yep. Geelong would always get to 3rd or 4th but get beaten by a stronger team packed with high picks (eg Hawthorn, Richmond, Melbourne). They needed a year like this and it took a decade but they finally got it. I guess that justifies the strategy.

 

[JimmyBC]

They only won the flag because Melbourne couldn't get their shit together, having said that it's a credit to them if you continuously put yourself in the mix the right circumstance can occur.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Yep, it worked because there wasn't any other genuinely strong sides to challenge them. The next best teams were a young Sydney side, a chancer Collingwood side and a Melbourne side who spent all year threatening but never quite put it together except, as usual, that one time against Port.

2007 was similar. Transition year for several other sides. We had a good year and bobbed up as the 2nd best side and got clobbered.

See also: 2021/22 Golden State Warriors.

Melbourne had a list that were good enough before they lost their way and got a few injuries. Play Tom McDonald for the last 10 games and they probably go further than they did.

Melbourne last year got bugger all injuries ( 10 played all games, 4 missed 1, 2 missed 2, and 1 missed 4). It was Geelong's turn this year (5 played all games, 4 missed 1, 3 missed 2, 3 missed 3 and 2 missed 4 games). Melbourne's top 17 players missed a total 12 games, Geelong's top 17 missed a total of 27 games, which includes a few deliberately being managed.