The Cats might be the weirdest premiership contender we’ve seen in recent history.
We know the 2024 roadmap to their current top-four spot. They won their first seven games and looked surprisingly damaging. They lost their next four and they were returning to the mean.
They’ve been demolished by Gold Coast, Carlton and the Western Bulldogs, and they’re one of the few teams to systematically destroy an impressive Hawthorn team.
Against the current top eight teams, they’re four wins and four losses. They’ve ebbed, they’ve flowed.
The final fortnight of the home-and-away season sees them play St Kilda and West Coast, two bottom-five teams in the league.
It’s entirely possible for this team to finish with a home Qualifying Final, yet it is a club that has seldom been spoken of.
There’s a reason for it – the 2024 version of Geelong has been quite baffling.
When we aim to assess a contender, we tend to try to analyse their strengths, before deciding if they outweigh any potential weaknesses.
For the Cats, they’ve been the best intercept and tackling team in the competition and they’re designed to work hand-in-hand. Attack the opposition ferociously, force them into pressurised situations and get them to bomb long to a backline whose strength is aerial pack defending, through marking or bringing the ball to ground.
They’re the best contested-ball-winning team in the competition, but that means they’re willing to embrace extreme pressure in order to do so.
The numbers indicate that Geelong’s games are the highest-pressure, highest-tackling contests in the league.
And that’s about it.
Jeremy Cameron and Tom Stewart aside, it’s not like the Cats are full of superstar players.
Jeremy Cameron celebrates a goal. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Patrick Dangerfield isn’t what he once was, but his X-factor makes him the most important player. Tyson Stengle is obviously talented but has a bit more to prove.
This isn’t a team with great defensive size. The athletic profile, especially through the middle, is particularly lacking. They’re not filled with world-beaters.
Yet if we’re going to (rightfully) praise Sam Mitchell and anoint him coach of the year for his efforts, then Chris Scott has to be a close second.
It’s hard to specifically identify the “why” behind Geelong’s contendership. Regular readers will know that the eye test has to precede statistical analysis, yet both are murky.
Watching the games, it’s strange. There are moments of individual brilliance by talented players, but for the most part, it’s like they’re just hanging in there.
Gone are the longer periods of dominance within games. Even against Fremantle, it seemed as though the Dockers could run over the top of them. Yet the pressure was maintained and momentum was halted.
The truth of the matter is that the Cats are a premiership contender for factors beyond the measurables that we tend to assess.
Scott has unbelievable confidence in his team’s chemistry and true belief that his structure and the roles he has to fill, can be done so with extreme effectiveness.
Geelong coach Chris Scott. (Photo by Graham Denholm/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
There has been plenty of tinkering throughout the season.
The Cameron on the wing experiment was good to test out an immobile forward line, but it didn’t work.
By necessity, they’ve had to trial the Hawkins-less forward line, which always seemed the way this season – Shannon Neale is simply a better fit.
Without Rhys Stanley, it was Toby Conway. The preferred option previously has been Mark Blicavs if a true ruck isn’t available. Instead, for a nice stretch in the middle of the season, it was Sam De Koning.
Even though it left the Cats undersized defensively, the tactical motif was the same – pressure around the ball, win clearances, tackle like crazy and force the opposition into turnovers.
Stewart was having a tough run copping a tag. No worries, he’s been their premier centre bounce midfielder since Round 16.
Surely there’s concern about moving the best intercept defender in the league up the ground? Don’t worry, Scott said, we believe in Zach Guthrie’s breakout season fulfilling that very role.
De Koning is Geelong’s only true regular who is of key defensive size, but he has his deficiencies in the role and is below average in his losing rate, that’s why he was able to be used as a ruck.
Jack Henry and Jake Kolodjasnij fulfil the roles admirably but have a look at their numbers – both have career-high numbers for intercept marks.
Scott wants to minimise the number of one-on-ones his players have to be involved in defensively because they’re all much better at reading the play than with their body strength.
Pressure, pressure, pressure
The Cats haven’t been this good of a pressure team since 2019.
In recent seasons, they’ve been below league average and really struggling to force the opposition into mistakes – they relied more heavily on their offensive games.
Perhaps the biggest tick in Scott’s book is his willingness to look at the role over the player, simply selecting the best fit.
Shaun Mannagh had to wait a while but is a vital part of this team now, as a high half-forward who spends time in the midfield, pushes back into the defensive half when chasing and is among the league’s best pressure players.
Stengle, himself, is averaging career-high-pressure acts and all he’s doing when the ball is at ground level is winning the hard ones.
Brad Close has stayed closer to goal this season and is ranked elite for his pressure.
Cats celebrate a goal. (Photo by Mark Brake/Getty Images)
Gryan Miers should be in the All-Australian squad himself. He’s now the complete player as a half-forward who has added elite pressure to his scoreboard impact and work rate.
Scott’s method of coaching this season is more about positional versatility and unpredictability than necessarily dominating in one area.
The Cats have their style and they’re going to play that way all season until their year is over. Pressure and intercepts.
But what all the above-listed players have, on top of the commitment to the game plan, is the rotational ability that is used throughout games.
Add Jack Bowes to the mix, as an above-average tackling midfielder alongside Tom Atkins and Tanner Bruhn, yet one who is an excellent user when out in space.
Max Holmes is the quintessential building block that Scott desires and has played multiple roles throughout the season. His speed and use off half-back changes the pace of play for the Cats, just as effectively as his spurts in the middle let him hunt and release.
Offensively, Neale is a huge target, but it’s his ground-level work that really adds another dimension. He’s rated elite for tackles inside 50 at a ruck-size. His contested marking is excellent and is a difficult matchup that always demands attention.
It’s what allows the Cats to play the far less mobile Ollie Henry in attack, without fear of him getting Hawkins’ way. Gary Rohan has a bit of that too.
But none of this is possible without the function of a couple of players in particular.
Ollie Dempsey, the soon-to-be crowned Rising Star of 2024, has emerged as one of the better wide players in the league. Not only is it due to his tank and willingness to offer targets all day, as high up the field as possible, but his work to get inside 50 and crash packs is of great use.
(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Even when Dempsey doesn’t take the mark, he drives his direct opponent into the ground aerobically. When the opposition has a struggling wingman, the Cats’ pressure can force the opposition to kick to that side.
The defence pushes up, intercepts from a more advanced position on a wing/flank and slingshot quickly.
The other, quite remarkably, is young Lawson Humphries.
Geelong has always needed a calm head behind the ball, someone to almost exclusively roam freely in the back half, and influence pack situations when needed, but have elite skills, excellent reading of the play and a focus on getting the ball forward.
The young Cat has quickly become the team’s most reliable kick, his positioning is first class and he is rated above average in score involvements and ability to jump across packs to spoil.
His emergence seemed random at first, but the combination of him and Guthrie has covered Stewart’s move to the midfield spectacularly well and allowed the veteran to roam back when he feels without fear of leaving his team in the lurch.
That is the modern-day Chris Scott legacy and the reason why Geelong can win the flag this year, without many standout features.
More than any other club this season, Geelong has adjusted individual tactics, positioning and even roles all throughout the season.
A team that was previously pretty solid, albeit predictable, has now become a team that the coach can rotate almost every player on the field across any of the three lines with full confidence.
He has cards up his sleeve that the opposition cannot plan for, which is often the secret to finals success.
Now there’ll be the elephant in the room with retiring great Tom Hawkins and how that’s managed, potentially affecting the forward rotation. This can be a real problem.
But as things stand, the Cats are looking at a top-four opportunity, having flown under the radar since the bye without any standout showing or performers, and they’ll be a threat to any team in the competition.
Scott is continuing to build his legacy as one of the best coaches since the turn of the century and the way he has set Geelong up must be commended.
They’re one of the weirdest contenders we’ve seen in years but don’t sleep on this versatile Geelong team – they can win the 2024 flag.
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