Sam De Koning (left) and Tom Hawkins look dejected after Geelong's round one loss to Collingwood at the MCG on March 17, 2023. Picture: Photos
IT WAS just eight matches ago Geelong played Gold Coast at the Suns' home ground and made them look like schoolboys up against men.
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Jeremy Cameron, Tom Hawkins and Tyson Stengle all profited inside 50, Patrick Dangerfield and Joel Selwood dominated at stoppages, while Mark Blicavs and Max Holmes ran relentlessly as the Cats overwhelmed their feisty opponent by 60 points.
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This was in round 22, 2022, the 12th of what would become 16 consecutive victories to storm the Cats to a flag.
Aside from Cameron's customary high standard, the Cats looked a shell of the team that stormed to a premiership last September, as they spluttered to a third consecutive loss to start 2023.
Post-match coach Chris Scott was calm – he should be, there's 20 home and away matches remaining and he wins at a clip greater than any coach in this competition in history - but he also gave a warning.
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It's not a matter of saying 'she'll be right'. There are some parts of our game that are off and we need to fix them as fast as we can.
The noticeable change is personnel. Selwood has retired, defensive anchor Jack Henry (foot) is missing, as is Jake Kolodjashnij (concussion) who is due back this week.
Sam De Koning has been in the wars each of the three matches, including a heavy head clash with Nick Holman on Sunday that forced him to be subbed out of the game.
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Tom Hawkins is a worry. The champion with 735 goals from 330 games barely had a pre-season following foot surgery. The Cats initially hinted he would struggle to be right for the start of the season, but as round one approached, dropped some bread crumbs that he was a chance to play.
The form of other premierships stars is down. Gryan Miers and Brad Close, so instrumental to success last year with their ability to sprint between the 50m arcs and overwhelm opponents with numbers, just didn't play with the same intensity against the Suns.
Stengle is nowhere near the level he rocketed to last season to win an All-Australian jacket and kick four goals in a breathtaking Grand Final outing.
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He was part of a forward group against Gold Coast that let Lachie Weller, Darcy Macpherson and Wil Powell easily transition the ball out of defence.
Tom Atkins, sixth in last year's best and fairest and a revered leader at the Cattery, is working hard, but not quite with the same impact as last year as Scott figures out his new midfield rotation.
Last year Geelong was ranked in the top five in both contested possession differential and clearance differential. Through three weeks this has plummeted to 17th in both categories.
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The disjointed defensive group hasn't gelled either. Esava Ratugolea has joined the mix, while Ollie Henry and Blicavs have been asked to plug holes there on occasions when Scott would rather deploy them in other parts of the ground.
Esava Ratugolea in action Geelong's round three match against Gold Coast at Heritage Bank Stadium on April 2, 2023. Picture: Photos
The defenders are getting little help from up-field though, with Geelong ranked 15th for the frequency opponents move the ball from their defensive 50 to their forward 50.
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The benchmark club for so long was lauded for another terrific off-season, landing Henry, Jack Bowes and Tanner Bruhn – along with the draft rights to select No.8 pick Jhye Clark – at minimal cost going the other way.
New skipper Dangerfield – still searching for his first win in charge – is understandably much like his coach, cool and calm.
It's been uber-successful for a long period, he told media on Tuesday. We've had a lot of change from last year, so there's a huge amount of hunger.
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The challenge we have at the moment is the confidence, and that's clear for any team that struggles with consistency and struggles with wins.
Sam De Koning copped a head knock and could miss the clash against Hawthorn. Mitch Duncan is a chance to return from the pre-season calf injury that has delayed his start to 2023.
Whether it's desire, integrating these new faces or too many missing too much of the pre-season due to injury, there's been a disconnect around the ground both with and without the ball.
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It's only three weeks, and the Cats showed last year the value of progressing as the season wore on, but Scott and his players have more than a few spot-fires to put out.
Up Next PODCAST LISTEN: Is De Goey finally delivering on Dusty hype, Tribunal fallout Join Damian Barrett and Sarah Olle for Daily Read nowWith loyal fans and smart leadership, Geelong have been the best team of the year, perhaps the decade. But they must win the 2022 AFL premiership on Saturday to truly cement their legacy
Geelong is a place that still has a sense of itself. Sure, Melbourne might be advancing down the highway, swallowing Werribee, sprawling towards Avalon in a way that could one day make the length of the Princes Highway a concrete conglomerate. But people from Geelong know that they are something different. They define themselves by it. Down that highway, out of the Melbourne footy fishbowl, Geelong Football Club offers one part of that sense of identity.
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Geography doesn’t mean much in the AFL anymore. Modern-day Carlton is full of lawyers and the uni student children of wealth, not earthy Italian cafe owners shouting “Woof!” at Ang Christou. Collingwood, Richmond, North Melbourne, the ghosts of Fitzroy, all fuse into an inner-city conglomerate: the surviving commission flats form islands among the hipsters and artists who can still afford it and the rich dullards wanting that reflected coolness while complaining about the noise. Real estate parasites would place St Kilda, Essendon, Footscray, Hawthorn all within the most desirable inner band of a metropolis ballooning beyond. Most Melburnians who follow football now live in a Melbourne that football doesn’t represent.
South Australia got a generic Adelaide team, then an Adelaide suburb. Western Australia got a generic team that everyone knew was Perth, then a Perth suburb. New South Wales got a generic Sydney team with a Harbour Bridge motif, then another that is supposed to cover everything else from Redfern to Canberra. Queensland got a generic Brisbane team, and while the Gold Coast is a Geelong-like distance away, it is umbilically attached to the state capital in a way that the Victorian cities would never countenance. No one from Melbourne goes to Geelong voluntarily, and no one in Geelong wants them to come.
All of which means there is only one rural or regional influence in an otherwise urban AFL. Geelong may have become a city itself, but it’s still the home of the woolsheds, still the big smoke for the Western District, still a place that represents the Bellarine Peninsula down the coast or the endless pastures inland. Even as the kilometres spool out into hundreds to the south or west, the default option is to be a Cats fan: in Colac, in Horsham, in Warrnambool, in Ararat, down the Great Ocean Road. There is the country link with the club’s stars: Billy Brownless kicking footies over a silo, Gary Ablett driving down from Drouin, Tom Hawkins beaming photogenically at his farm, Patrick Dangerfield lured back by the surf coast. These days, the Cats represents the concept of being regional rather than a region itself.
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Which all feeds into why Geelong the club means so much to Geelong the town. Kardinia Park has grown into a colossus, packed every second week through winter to create the only remaining intra-state home ground advantage in the league. Success in the AFL lays a marker for local strength. It is a smaller cohesive power showing the big cities that it can compete. Cohesion is what only a place like this can create. My main childhood memory of the 1989 grand final, more than the game itself, was all of Geelong decked in white and blue: streamers on trees, balloons in shops, drapery from windows. The solitary house dressed in brown and gold only emphasised how total the prevailing sentiment was.
The solitary house got the win, and so began four grand final losses in seven years. There was plenty of local pride at the Cats’ buccaneering style, but it also hurt not returning a premiership. By 2004 an upstart side was back in finals contention, and in 2007 the cup was won at last. All season the mantra had been to “keep the lid on”. During the homecoming presentation the following day, someone who I don’t recall remarked that the lid was last seen flying somewhere over Torquay.
So began four grand finals in five years. This time, three of them were won. For supporters, contentment could rest easy at last. Also deeply satisfying was becoming a leading club in other ways. A ‘no dickheads’ policy meant that drafting relied on character as well as skill. Scandals all but