Review Slow starting Cats come storming home to defeat Tigers by 30 points

[Mr Meow]

The Cats were terrible in the first half, finally showing a bit toward the end of the second. I just think our mids outran the Tigers in the second half, and that was the catalyst for the surge that saw them win by 30 points in the end. The Tiger's young squad ran out of puff. But if they could have kept that pressure up for four quarters, the Cats would have been in trouble. But, in the end, the likes of Holmes, Bowes, Bruhn, Atkins, Close, and Dempsey got the job done. But we play the Swans, Carlton, & Hawthorn (who are playing well) next, and that is going to be very difficult for us, I feel. We could lose all 3 of those with the current form of the team.

I mostly agree with this. Can I just commend you as well on managing to start three consecutive sentences with "but". I don't think I've ever seen that before. It was a rollercoaster ride.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Only saw the first half, some weird match up decisions. Dempsey rolling off the wing to be the spare when they were entering 50 while MOC played forward of the ball was bizarro stuff.

I also don’t know who makes way, and I don’t think he is the answer, but they have to try Hardie. Finding the footy is a skill. This midfield group can’t do it consistently for four quarters.

Yeah I think there's definitely some experimentation going on now that we're not rebounding into empty space like we were in the first few weeks.

 

[kickazz]

Tbh love him on the wing. Sometimes it looks like we can't take a mark and transition without him. He's an extremely clever user of the ball. If he snags 2 a game while playing on the wing things are good.

He is a clever user of the ball, but has been sloppy especially by hand this year. Takes the right option but not always delivers it optimally.

 

[Mr Meow]

Clearly not a top 4 team….. fighting for a place in the eight. Knock off the top dogs and back up after the bye then we can reassess . Unlikely that will happen though.

The Sydney game will be tough, it's really an auto loss and 50/50 for an auto smashing for sides heading up there.

So the two imminent games I have my eyes on to assess where we are at are the two games at the G against Carlton/Essendon. Win both and we are a top 4 team. Win one of them and send the other to the wire and we are thereabouts for the top 4 chase. Lose both and we are fighting for 5th-8th only and even that could be a close run thing.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

He was made sub because he was poor against Gold Coast. A few of our midfielders were poor but they had to choose one.

I think they were sending him the message that if he wants to be a regular senior midfielder he can’t allow the opposition midfield to dominate like that. He can’t have noncompetitive games.

Looks like he got the message, but he has to keep it up.

Our midfield doesnt have the quality to be dropping him to sub so whatever message they are trying to send it isnt the right way.

 

[Chinacats]

The Sydney game will be tough, it's really an auto loss and 50/50 for an auto smashing for sides heading up there.

So the two imminent games I have my eyes on to assess where we are at are the two games at the G against Carlton/Essendon. Win both and we are a top 4 team. Win one of them and send the other to the wire and we are thereabouts for the top 4 chase. Lose both and we are fighting for 5th-8th only and even that could be a close run thing.

Yeah might need an unexpected win somewhere like Swans at the SCG. Hawks at GMHBA seems a challenging game now too after those MCG games.

 

[Mr Meow]

He is a clever user of the ball, but has been sloppy especially by hand this year. Takes the right option but not always delivers it optimally.

Cameron gets in these confidence ruts where his decision making is off by half a second or his actual execution becomes erratic. It happened last season. 2021 was a bit the same but he wasn't fit.

Very much a "mojo" player. When he has it he runs hot and is dominant, even unstoppable. When he doesn't, he can be oddly incapable of starring. And it really hurts our synergy as a team. We need him back to his best and quickly if we are to mix it up with the better sides.

 

[kickazz]

Yep. Rohan contests hard to bring the ball to deck. Henry does not. Im not sure henry has a future unless he can find a new role. He is just too small and skinny for the role he is playing.

I like O Henry but I would also like to see a new stat each week: uncontested possessions from his opponent in the first half. It's not just ourr midfield that are slow starters

 

[catempire]

Only saw the first half, some weird match up decisions. Dempsey rolling off the wing to be the spare when they were entering 50 while MOC played forward of the ball was bizarro stuff.

I also don’t know who makes way, and I don’t think he is the answer, but they have to try Hardie. Finding the footy is a skill. This midfield group can’t do it consistently for four quarters.

I won’t labour my views on Hardie, but just to say that we have been destroyed in the middle for most of the year with far better players than Hardie who, if they played VFL, would get just much if not more ball than him.

What seemed to change in the second half last night was the intent to attack. Not only in moving the ball but we abandoned the ultra defensive centre square setup which has at times this year, farcically, seen all three of our mids tagging and none trying to get the ball! Who would have thought that can’t work??

 

[Footy Smarts]

Very torn for next week between bringing back the mature guys (Danger, Blicavs, Stanley) to give it a crack against Sydney knowing it almost certainly won't work and sticking with the kids knowing it could easily get very ugly.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

Corneses

Unit would be very large. Something that sorta sucked a bit would be about an 8th of a cornes?

I say we measure it in miliCornes or mC which would be one 1000th of a Kane Cornes comment on a non port teenager.

Tonight I would say my opinions were a 30mC

 

[catempire]

I am not one to normally engage in the AFL issue of the week/content machine, but I find it extraordinary that the AFL decided to fundamentally change the way holding the ball would be interpreted from one week to the next. And one extreme to the other.

All it required was to highlight the obvious errors, of which there were several each game and tell the umps “fix these”.

But no, this is the AFL and only an over correction will do.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

The Sydney game will be tough, it's really an auto loss and 50/50 for an auto smashing for sides heading up there.

So the two imminent games I have my eyes on to assess where we are at are the two games at the G against Carlton/Essendon. Win both and we are a top 4 team. Win one of them and send the other to the wire and we are thereabouts for the top 4 chase. Lose both and we are fighting for 5th-8th only and even that could be a close run thing.

The port and gws losses hurt.
But even if we lose the next 2 and go 8-6
Then we have a good record against essendon, after that the hawks,dogs, crows, north st kilda and wce games are all eminently winnable if we have danger back and lift our form.

I dont think we will win the flag but we should be a real shot at finishing 3rd to 7th. Apart from sydney its a very open year.

 

[catempire]

Yes a better team would've beaten us but this is desperately searching for excuses for Richmond. These players have no excuse for running out of legs and we had much less seasoned, younger players in much more important roles than Richmond.

Ryan's 2 years older and played twice as many games as Neale, our direct equivalent.

At the same age and after a similar number of games as Cumberland, Stengle and Close were playing key roles in a premiership. Nobody was saying they had to run out of legs cause they were too inexperienced.

Ralphsmith is a running machine and absolutely did not run out of legs.

Lefau has played VFL since 2016 after being in an elite sporting environment as a rugby league junior.

Dow has been in the system a year longer than both Holmes and Bruhn and spent 2020 in a full time elite environment not sitting at home under lockdown. It's embarrassing if he's getting outworked by younger players.

Miller has had 2 more preseasons than SDK, our direct equivalent, and looks miles more physically developed.

“Geelong is old” is their story and they’re sticking to it.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Yeah might need an unexpected win somewhere like Swans at the SCG. Hawks at GMHBA seems a challenging game now too after those MCG games.

If we beat hawks adel north dogs (we have a very good record against them at home excluding r23 last year) saints wce and pinch either the ess or coll game that will be 15 wins and should get 4th at worst.

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Very torn for next week between bringing back the mature guys (Danger, Blicavs, Stanley) to give it a crack against Sydney knowing it almost certainly won't work and sticking with the kids knowing it could easily get very ugly.

The former i think.
Danger has to play.
Blitz will play given grundy.
Stanley is cooked though wouldnt play him.

Mannagh also has to play next week.

 

[Zouz Kitty]

Is it safe to return?

Are the nervy turns + melts finished?

 

[Pure_Ownage]

All it required was to highlight the obvious errors, of which there were several each game and tell the umps “fix these”.

But no, this is the AFL and only an over correction will do.

The afl is run by idiots so no one could realistically expect better.

 

[Mr Meow]

Neale is a curious one. Our structure doesn't seem right with so many forwards, specifically KPFs. An extra midfielder/runner instead makes sense.

Yet if you look at Neale's output it hasn't been bad at all. 8 goals and 3 goal assists from 4 games (2.75 goals/assists per game).

9.5 disposals and 5 marks a game is perfectly fine for a forward playing his 6th-9th AFL games.

Then curiously, Hawkins has been back in the goals/assists (6 over his past 2 games) since Neale came into the side.

Is the experiment actually working?

 

[Zouz Kitty]

We're sitting 3rd

It's kind of crazy, after that game! We pulled a rabbit out of our hat. To watch the improvement was baffling after the cluster**** why didn't we play that well all game? These dreadful starts must change.

 

[Jumping Jack]

I must have been watching a different match last night. I’ve been marking Duncan hard this year, and although he was better, I thought he was far from our best (as reports suggested).

You can wallpaper over cracks against lower sides. He’ll be seriously exposed Vs hard running Sydney mids.


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[iameviljez]

Neale is a curious one. Our structure doesn't seem right with so many forwards, specifically KPFs. An extra midfielder/runner instead makes sense.

Yet if you look at Neale's output it hasn't been bad at all. 8 goals and 3 goal assists from 4 games (2.75 goals/assists per game).

9.5 disposals and 5 marks a game is perfectly fine for a forward playing his 6th-9th AFL games.

Then curiously, Hawkins has been back in the goals/assists (6 over his past 2 games) since Neale came into the side.

Is the experiment actually working?

Hard to tell.

However, playing a sub-50 game tall is usually a negative for the now, in the hope of a positive long term return anyway

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Neale is a curious one. Our structure doesn't seem right with so many forwards, specifically KPFs. An extra midfielder/runner instead makes sense.

Yet if you look at Neale's output it hasn't been bad at all. 8 goals and 3 goal assists from 4 games (2.75 goals/assists per game).

9.5 disposals and 5 marks a game is perfectly fine for a forward playing his 6th-9th AFL games.

Then curiously, Hawkins has been back in the goals/assists (6 over his past 2 games) since Neale came into the side.

Is the experiment actually working?

Maybe but our midfield is too weak and we need to swap 1 or 2 forwards for mids (as we will do when danger returns next week).

 

[Wish Wellingtons]

Did we play well because our midfield got possessions? Or did our midfield get possessions because we played well?

Imagine if they had 100% TOG

 

[catempire]

Neale is a curious one. Our structure doesn't seem right with so many forwards, specifically KPFs. An extra midfielder/runner instead makes sense.

Yet if you look at Neale's output it hasn't been bad at all. 8 goals and 3 goal assists from 4 games (2.75 goals/assists per game).

9.5 disposals and 5 marks a game is perfectly fine for a forward playing his 6th-9th AFL games.

Then curiously, Hawkins has been back in the goals/assists (6 over his past 2 games) since Neale came into the side.

Is the experiment actually working?

Neale has to stay, particularly while Blicavs is out. He shows glimpses of the future. I’d keep investing.