Does Geelong have cause for concern?
In the end they won the game well as the result of a strong second half but the Cats might not fare so well again next time if they repeat their first quarter efforts. Against the winless Crows they led by just seven points at the main break after being blown away in the centre clearances 6-1. We aren’t sure that a West Coast or Richmond would remain within touching distance if the Cats afforded them a similar advantage.
How the Game was Won
Full of run and adventure the Crows were right in this contest at three-quarter time. In the end though, with the match on the line, the Cats had too much experience, too much class, and too many contributors to be denied.
Led by Cameron Guthrie and Patrick Dangerfield who combined for 18 possessions in the final term, the Cats would win the stoppages 10-4 and inside 50 count 12-4 in the decisive quarter. Combined with cooler heads and cleaner ball use, this was enough to see the Cats overcome the Crows challenge and record a 28-point win.
What the Coaches Said
Adelaide
Matthew Nicks believed his team offered their supporters a look at what the future holds. “I hope our members and supporters saw today (Sunday) a glimpse of where we’re heading, because that’s what we’re about as a group: coming off after a quarter and feeling like that was our quarter,” he said.
“We had moments where we owned that game and that’s why we were pleased with the performance for three quarters, with such a young group from an experience point of view, we’re going to make mistakes here and there that are going to cost us some games and we did that today (Sunday), we made a number of big mistakes that was a 12-point turnaround.
“We’ll learn from those and slowly over time, we won’t make those mistakes again. In fact, it turns really quickly, so it’s a real positive for us and we’ve now go to come up again in nine days and put on another performance against another good side (in Hawthorn on September 1).”
Geelong
Chris Scott was pleased with his team’s even spread of contributors. “Going back a bit, we’ve probably been a bit more dependent on Selwood and (Patrick) Dangerfield than we are now … but we’ve just had some organic growth over the last year in particularly, 18 months maybe, through the likes of Menegola and (Brandan) Parfitt and Guthrie, (Mitch) Duncan’s been a good player for a long time,” Scott said. “It seems to me when you take a step back to be a more even midfield than we’ve had in the past, but we’ve been working away at that for a long time, it hasn’t just happened.”
“The most important thing is the win, we don’t take them for granted,” he said. I’m not sure whether our attitude was a little bit off, if I made that assumption I think it’s being a bit disrespectful, if you take the game on face value, (Adelaide) were pretty hot around the ball early and couldn’t quite take their chances a few times, but they looked really competitive.”
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ADELAIDE 1.3 3.4 5.6 5.7 (37)
GEELONG 3.2 4.5 6.9 9.11 (65)
GOALS
Adelaide: Stengle, Sloane, Schoenberg, McAdam, Mackay
Geelong: Hawkins 3, Stanley 2, Duncan 2, Blicavs, Rohan
BEST
Adelaide: M.Crouch, Laird, O’Brien, Mackay, Sloane, Hartigan
Geelong: C.Guthrie, Steven, Menegola, Duncan, Dangerfield, Hawkins
INJURIES
Adelaide: McAdam (hamstring)
Geelong: Steven (knee)