36 minutes ago, deanox said:

Was screaming for this!

How he managed to hit Max up like that, I'll never know.

On the sunday footy show this morning they showed footage of max running down into the 50 & he actually points where he wanted lever to kick it & he pin pointed it perfectly

For Lever to not panic and bomb it in but instead pin point the kick to Gawn, just shows what a calm operator he is. A genuine leader. 

46 minutes ago, Maldonboy38 said:

I actually think Chris Scott is a great coach, and it would be brilliant to play under him. He goes into bat for his players, tries to find ways to speak positively in press conferences, and actually answers questions with an answer related to the question. He is a bit odd, but you have to be a bit mental to be an AFL coach.

And I am a bit surprised to see those responses from Cat supporters - they seem to genuinely rate our players.

The 2 main things coming from Moorabool St are spot on

• 1) Their ruck set up is a mess considering how well they are placed in the top 4 for the finals
• 2) ageing list. 

This is a joke, the man is always complaining about umpiring, how many times does he throw is  arms in the air in the coaches box when frees goes against Geelong, they have multiple 32/33 34 year old players I'm still on multi-year deals the cliff is coming huge, their ground is the biggest home game advantage in the AFL, he will be cursed for many years to come,  as  they spend the next 10 years on the bottom of the ladder

Numerically best comeback since Wonna’s Freo game? 
In this day and age with Defence and shutdowns - six minutes remain in the third and still 44 points down 

Just now, Jaded said:

For Lever to not panic and bomb it in but instead pin point the kick to Gawn, just shows what a calm operator he is. A genuine leader. 

Agree, great kick from Lever. But then how the Cats left the biggest man on the ground on his own, in space, when every player was in our fwd 50 is mind blowing. 

7 minutes ago, FarNorthernD said:

Agree, great kick from Lever. But then how the Cats left the biggest man on the ground on his own, in space, when every player was in our fwd 50 is mind blowing. 

I think the media have gone a bit hard on Stanley.  If Lever had gone for goal and it had gone through at 2.5m height, the same media would be all over Geelong for not having their ruck on the goal line. Full credit to Max, May and others for getting down there.

That post saying Gawn is an umpires pet - what? Gawn gets targeted off the ball more than any other player and the umps do nothing lol 

4 minutes ago, Watson11 said:

I think the media have gone a bit hard on Stanley.  If Lever had gone for goal and it had gone through at 2.5m height, the same media would be all over Geelong for not having their ruck on the goal line. Full credit to Max, May and others for getting down there.

Not really having a crack at Stanley. Maxy juggled the ball a bit, any player could have at least bumped him. Hawkins is a huge unit and he was doing FA in that play. I hate Hawkins so I blame him.
Honestly it could be the beginning of the end of this Cats era and it’s all Tom Hawkins fault. 

3 minutes ago, FarNorthernD said:

Not really having a crack at Stanley. Maxy juggled the ball a bit, any player could have at least bumped him. Hawkins is a huge unit and he was doing FA in that play. I hate Hawkins so I blame him.
Honestly it could be the beginning of the end of this Cats era and it’s all Tom Hawkins fault. 

To be fair to Stanley, it did look like he was told to go back to the goal line by a senior player. Hawkins was guarding grass nearby. Stanley looked around after and looked furious at his teammates call. 

3 hours ago, Yokozuna said:

That was actually good reading, fair and concise.

I did attempt to watch the Scott press conference, but I only got 2 minutes into the 10 minute presser before I turned it off.

I know he was talking “coach speak” and trying to deflect and be as positive as he could, but when he starts with a line about being in control of the game and questioning the umpires (yes he did mention our deliberate was strange, but that was one of many that wen their way), I turned off. They controlled the game for 15 minutes. For the rest of the game we were better than them and played our style. 

Does goody talk that annoyingly or am I biased and don’t notice cos he is our coach?

No. I think Goodwin has become the most pragmatic and objective of all coaches in press conferences. 

4 hours ago, Pates said:

Surprisingly that’s quite complimentary of our team and not one of them mentioned the 50m penalty. Also very happy that they recognise they’re “dad’s army”. Their fall of the cliff will be quite something I think, they might hang in there next year but they have very little coming through. 

There were about 4 posts whinging about the 50 metres but about 16 posts putting them in their place telling them it was there every day of the week. Quiet suprised. Very very few blamed the umpires. Critical of their stars and ruckman in the last quarter.

23 hours ago, Queanbeyan Demon said:

Their cheap jibes

• Melbourne have been genuinely pathetic any time the heat has been put on them and thats exactly whats going to happen come finals, isn't really a side to fear provided we play our best footy.
• If Bulldog's beat Port Friday night, and we're backing our selected 22 to get the job done against Melbourne (whoever that is).
• Melb is a more talented version of StkILDA.
• Just want to see whole team improvement and focus each game from here on in. And to give Melbourne some mental demons heading into September.

Their compliments

• Melbourne are the big threat in finals this year with a full strength team.
• Gawn/Jackson vs Stanley/Blicavs is a definitie win to Melbourne. Gawn will have 45 hit outs, 20 disposals and 6 clearances on the weekend.
• The Dees have some genuine guns that worry me - Petracca, Gawn, Oliver can all dominate.
• Dees are primed to take the silverware. Few injuries and seem to have got their junk together.

Their arrogance

• We'll trounce the Dees.
• We lost to Melbourne at the G by 25 points with no Danger and no Cameron. They don't fill me with any sort of fear. Overrated imo.

Player match-ups

• The key to this game is making sure that Leever is accountable. May will play close attention to Hawk so whoever plays on Leever needs to draw him away from Hawkins and if Leever doesn't follow, then his opponent needs to be utilised.
• Must not put O'Connor on Oliver. If you see that at the start of the game just ring Sportsbet and put everything on Melbourne.
• Stanley is playing well at the minute, Smashed Marshall and he plays well against Gawn.
• I'm sure they will have a tagging job for O'Connor, most likely Oliver or Petracca.
• Although Oliver gets a lot of the ball, his passing and goal kicking won't hurt you on the score board, I'd tag Petracca instead.
• Looking forward to seeing May and Hawkins battle it out.
• I have to say Stanley is playing the best I have ever seen him play. He won't dominate Gawn in the hit-outs, but his other work around the ground is going to test big Maxy to the core.
• I think Petty will get the job as he's very agile and should be able to hang with Cameron.

Everything else

• Could Fort be our Clark Keating? Dees look pretty top heavy to me.
• On paper it looks like we are chasing the win.
• Last time we played Melb in round 23: Us:24.11.155, Deez:6.8.44 Differences from the last time we played the Dees: In: Parfitt Cameron Rohan Dangerfield Simpson Out: Clark Duncan Z.Guthrie Narkle Stewart. Compared to Melbourne's changes.... In: Smith Petty Harmes Brown Bowey Out: Hunt Jetta Jones Jordon Melksham.
• Cameron is our forward line basically. I mean potentially we could have the best forward line especially with the last two Coleman medallists , but at the minute it’s not dynamic. Close & Dahl are not goal scorers, Sav is a joke, Hawkins is glued to the boundary line. Higgins doesn’t score much. We are 7th of the top 8 teams for scoring and in 7 games we haven’t scored more than 70 points. 
• Hawkins has not exactly starred in finals in recent years; Rohan has a poor finals record; Dalhousie is not a goal kicker; so a lot - too much in fact - depends on Cameron.
• I wouldn’t mind Hawkins being rested this week simply so that he avoids suspension ahead of finals. He’s been getting a little frustrated over the past few weeks, and I can just see if he gets poor delivery this week, Dees defenders will rib him, and he’ll lash out with a dumb elbow or poor tackle or something. We must have him for finals.
• Might as well rest him until the grand final (if the Cats make it) just to be safe.
• My fear for Geelong is that a team will get a hold of is in the midfield for a quarter or half and expose our backline.
• Geelong’s forward line is a stagnant mess. Cameron is the exception.
• Melbourne is very susceptible to pressure which is why they've lost to some average, low skilled teams. We pressure them, we win.
• Melbourne is a super talented team but how can they lose to teams like Adelaide, Collingwood and Hawthorn? Pressure.
• Letting Salem distibute the ball from the back unchecked would be a mistake.
• Salem's been off the boil for the past month or two because teams are clamping down on him.
• Lever will try and intercept everything just as Taylor did for GWS the other week.

One whole post

It doesn't look likely that we will play them rd.1 in the finals now, but this will be an important test for both sides.

I think Melbourne will certainly go in very strong favourites. We simply don't have the midfield they do and although we seem to find ways to win, without key defenders Touhy and Stewart we will struggle to get that run off the backline. Hopefully Atkins and Rohan will be back to put the heat on the Dees a little and release O'Connor to play more defensive in the middle and Rohan to force a defender to chase him all over the field.

I simply don't think the defensive side of our midfield will hold up unless we get the balance right. Their backline has improved and that's a threat. Jake "Pull My" Lever and Steven "Holding the Man" May are both playing well and deserve respect. If we bomb it blindfolded into the forward line like we did vs GWS and like our 1st quarter vs Saints they will star with Ed "Not Karl" Langdon just running it out at will.

Their forward line is still whacky though. Bayley "Needs a Proper Haircut" Fritsch is having a purple patch and would have been a good matchup for Stewart. Not sure who runs with him now. Ben Brown is still a bit of a decoy player so he doesn't worry me much. The rest of them are pretty good. Not sure about jake Milkshake or Charlie Cargo though.

Max "The Personality" Gawn is still a legend, despite his umpire's pet reputation. Clayton "Kicks Like Cam Guthrie" Oliver is scary prolific. Christian "One Console at a Time" Petracca and co. are way better at their best than our guys.

I think they have answers to any question we put to them. Big test. I'd say they win by 25 pts.

thanks QBD ... you go to a lot of trouble for this forum.

we love you as much as Max's kicking style!

23 hours ago, rpfc said:

Thanks QD.

Gawd I would love to send Geelong to Port first week and then back to Adel to go out in straight sets to WB or GWS…

4 hours ago, spirit of norm smith said:

Media saying controversial 50 against Close!!!! Wtf

. No cats supporters should question it. 
it was a dumb thing to do and deserved the 50. Everyone knows it.  

That happened to us against the hawks if my memory serves me it was against lever who kicked it away anyone else remember it?

Just re-watched the first quarter. Scott saying they controlled the game up until 3/4 time is a joke, as was him saying that they had the better of the rucks.

it’s okay to try and put a positive spin on things, but who did he think he was kidding?

5 hours ago, Pates said:

Surprisingly that’s quite complimentary of our team and not one of them mentioned the 50m penalty. Also very happy that they recognise they’re “dad’s army”. Their fall of the cliff will be quite something I think, they might hang in there next year but they have very little coming through. 

Virtually every post I read on their site said the 50m was justified. It was there but pretty harsh given the state of the game and the fact that Close probably didn't know exactly where the boundary line was as he was focused on teh ball.

He also hit the full on the full unlike Melksham's effort where the ball had already hit the deck.

In any case it was one against the flow of putrid decisions like Brayshaw's a minute earlier and May's deliberate, and Clarry's deliberate and Hawkins head slam of Oliver....

It would never have been paid in a full stadium at Geelong.

1 hour ago, Flag Favourites 3019 said:

There were about 4 posts whinging about the 50 metres but about 16 posts putting them in their place telling them it was there every day of the week. Quiet suprised. Very very few blamed the umpires. Critical of their stars and ruckman in the last quarter.

All got stuck into Stanley, and Guthrie who they said was extremely soft, and Dangerfield not touching it in the last and spending 8 minutes on the bench and Scotts style of play chipping it around to save the game......

4 hours ago, deanox said:

The umpiring was pretty average all night. I would have thought that the two top 4 battle games would have been auditions for the 6 umpires they thought were most likely for the prelim/GF?

Good point.  If thats likely gee we have a problem with decision making then. Although it also happended to the Dees in Adelaide ealy in the first loss of the season.

58 minutes ago, Ollie fan said:

Just re-watched the first quarter. Scott saying they controlled the game up until 3/4 time is a joke, as was him saying that they had the better of the rucks.

it’s okay to try and put a positive spin on things, but who did he think he was kidding?

I think it was a desperate plea to the Geelong faithful to not believe that Kardina Park is now known as Jurassic Park. 
His team of Dinosaurs can’t do 120+ minutes of footy. 

40 minutes ago, McQueen said:

I think it was a desperate plea to the Geelong faithful to not believe that Kardina Park is now known as Jurassic Park. 
His team of Dinosaurs can’t do 120+ minutes of footy. 

1 hour ago, jnrmac said:

All got stuck into Stanley, and Guthrie who they said was extremely soft, and Dangerfield not touching it in the last and spending 8 minutes on the bench and Scotts style of play chipping it around to save the game.....

Geelong has to play a slow kicking game plan because they are so old, he is saving them for them for full length games.

1 hour ago, jnrmac said:

Virtually every post I read on their site said the 50m was justified. It was there but pretty harsh given the state of the game and the fact that Close probably didn't know exactly where the boundary line was as he was focused on teh ball.

He also hit the full on the full unlike Melksham's effort where the ball had already hit the deck.

In any case it was one against the flow of putrid decisions like Brayshaw's a minute earlier and May's deliberate, and Clarry's deliberate and Hawkins head slam of Oliver....

It would never have been paid in a full stadium at Geelong.

With you completely with this post, except for giving him the benefit of the doubt. He was over line when he went up for the ball, his immediate opponent had already dropped a couple of steps back because of how clearly OOtF it was (so no physical pressure and he wasn't trying to spoil anyone's mark) and he chose to double fist punch it as far as he could. 

I think it was pretty justified for a "time wasting" 50 m penalty, given the "professional foul" nature of the infringement.

1 minute ago, deanox said:

With you completely with this post, except for giving him the benefit of the doubt. He was over line when he went up for the ball, his immediate opponent had already dropped a couple of steps back because of how clearly OOtF it was (so no physical pressure and he wasn't trying to spoil anyone's mark) and he chose to double fist punch it as far as he could. 

I think it was pretty justified for a "time wasting" 50 m penalty, given the "professional foul" nature of the infringement.

agreed

3 hours ago, Flag Favourites 3019 said:

There were about 4 posts whinging about the 50 metres but about 16 posts putting them in their place telling them it was there every day of the week. Quiet suprised. Very very few blamed the umpires. Critical of their stars and ruckman in the last quarter.

I mean it would be very Essendon-esque to blame the umpires for giving up a 44 point lead halfway through the third quarter. 
Geelong never tried to win it from there. They just tried defending the lead, which was really stupid against a quality opponent. 

5 hours ago, FarNorthernD said:

Agree, great kick from Lever. But then how the Cats left the biggest man on the ground on his own, in space, when every player was in our fwd 50 is mind blowing. 

Yep. “Whoops”.