Season 2015 - Geelong

Football Discussion Non Essendon Stuff
1

Geelong

Coach - Chris Scott

2014 -
Points for - 6th
Points Against - 8th

Top 5 Best and Fairest

  1. Joel Selwood
  2. Tom Hawkins
  3. Mitch Duncan
  4. Corey Enright
  5. Harry Taylor

2013/2014 Rising Star Noms

George Horlin-Smith

Ins
Mitch Clark, Rhys Stanley, Sam Blease, Padraig Lucey, Nakia Cockatoo, Cory Gregson, Dean Gore, Jordan Cunico, Tom Read (rk), Cameron Delaney (rk)

Outs
Allen Christensen, Travis Varcoe, Jesse Stinger, Jordan Schroder, George Burbury, Taylor Hunt, Joel Hamling, Mitch Brown, Jackson Sheringham, Nic Bourke

My prediction

Imagine having the 6th best attack and the 8th best defence yet still finishing in the top 3. Is the sign of a team who knows how to win. They won 7 games last year by less than 10 points. The top of their playing list carries a lot of quality still. It will be up to the younger players this year to step up.

When you look at who they have brought in this year clearly they want another option up forward to help Hawkins but it looks to be at the cost of pace. Losing Varcoe and Christensen not matter what the circumstances is big for a team that needed that pace. I know Blease has pace but he isn’t a good enough player and it would take some improvement for him to crack the team. Cockatoo should see some game time straight away for this reason.

You never want to write off a team like Geelong. They have some genuine champions in their line up but their better players are getting on and a lot of their younger players haven’t stepped up and taken over yet. If they don’t this year then the slide is on.

Geelong could still finish top four, could also miss the eight entirely. I think most likely is inbetween and likely to finish in the 5-7 range.

2
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If, 2 or 3 years ago, someone had said "A certain club will pick up Cam Delaney, Sam Blease, Rhys Stanley & Mitch Clark, despite all of them still basically sucking at football" Geelong would've been about 1000000-1.

Agree with that, but take out Mitch Clark. Sucking at football was never his issue.

As to your Essendon c. 2005 comment… They may well be, but they could also be Sydney c. 2009. Not quite there, but not far off enough to have to do a total rebuild before another crack at success.

Sydney still had, more or less, half a very very good, proven, experienced team, still with a couple of years left at that point. J Bolton, Goodes, McVeigh, OKeefe, Jolly, Kirk (was 32, 09 was his 2nd last year) Mattner, Rhyce Shaw; with Malceski, Nick Smith, Grundy, Richards & LRT down back. Fair whack of their nucleus from 05/06, plus a few good additions. Their forward line (Micky O, Barry, Nick Davis) had pretty much all gone, the rest was basically there, mostly in their late 20s.

I don’t see that with Geelong. They have Enright, still just about at his peak, and Stevie J who’s at about the same point as Kirk was in 09. Mackie, Bartel, Stokes, Kelly, Lonergan are past 30.
Selwood is even better than he was, Taylor & Hawkins are a great starting point for the spine - but I worry a lot about the midfield. And Scott hasn’t really proven he can develop players like Bomba did.

Basically the tl:dr; version is: Sydney had a couple of years left of their gun mids to develop Hanneberry, Jack etc, and found Kennedy in a dumpster out the back. I don’t think Geelong have those years of Kelly/Bartel etc left for Murdoch, Horlin-Smith etc to come through, and they haven’t found a Josh Kennedy

For post Over 30 = born pre 1985
Take out over 30s bartel enright S Johnson, j Kelly, lonergan, mackie, macintosh, rivers stokes.

They need a free agent and should have cash. Maybe dangerfield or selwoods brother.

Under 30 team
B bews Taylor koldashnij
Hb Thurlow smedts horlin-smith
C cockatoo j caddy Duncan
Hf Stanley Clark Lang
F Vardy Hawkins Murdoch
R Blicavs selwood motlop
Its hard filling in last 5 or so spots. They will need to keep the old blokes around as they don’t have the quality kids to replace them yet. Poor development under Scott

Compare to hawks under 30 squad.
Out: Mitchell, Gibson, hale, hodge, lake, Burgoyne
B puopolo stratton Duryea
Hb birchall Frawley Suckling
C Smith Langford hill
Hf Whitecross Gunston o’rourke
F Breust Roughead Rioli
R McEvoy Lewis shiels
Int Sicily hartung, Ceglar, schoenmakers

A lot more young talent at hawthorn than Geelong.

Now for dons
Over 30
Chapman, winderlich, fletcher.
Note Goddard Watson Stanton cooney turn 30 this year. Left them out to make more interesting.
B baguley Hooker ashby
Hb Hibberd Hurley Dempsey
c Colyer Myers Zaharakis
Hf Ambrose Carlisle Howlett
F zerrett daniher Edwards
R Bellchambers Heppell Melksham
Int Gwilt hocking Gleeson dalgleish
Emg Langford laverde fantasia
IMO we have lots of depth and talent to come in. Tho I probably have rose coloured glasses and know more about efc list.

3

I would imagine they still have a solid Best 22.
The old farts are still playing at a high quality. - Kelly, enright, Johnson, Bartel

B Rivers Taylor Kelly
HB Enright Lonergan Mackie
C Duncan Caddy Guthrie
HF Bartel Clark Cockatoo
F Motlop Hawkins Stokes
R Macintosh Selwood Johnson
Int Vardy, Horlin-Smith Murdoch Stanley
Emg Smedts, Thurlow, Bews

Could be Macintoshs last year. and they would be happy with Vardy & Blicavs in the ruck if HMac misses. They have some pretty good kids coming through in - Cockatoo, Thurlow, Lang, Bews, Koldashnij
Players that need to show improvement this year are - Smedts, Menzel (get over injuries) & Kersten will find it tougher to get a gig competing with Resting ruck/ Clark/Stanley for a gig.
Not sure on stanley trade, but assume he squeezes into best 22.
Id like to see thurlow get a run. & Cockatoo for his speed.

Backline looks solid, Forwardline looks better if Clark can play some good footy.
Wont miss christensen (injured last year anyway back) or Varcoe (spud) too much as they didnt have a big impact in 2014.
Still have Selwood, Johnson, Bartel going through the middle they will do alright.

Prediction Cats still have enough talent to make finals, albeit in the bottom half 5-8.

4

Really surprised they’ve added Clark AND Stanley without getting rid of at least one of Blicavs, Simpson, Walker, Kersten or Vardy. Gonna be hard to include them in the best 22 especially with Hawkins and McIntosh demanding the FF and Ruck spot.

Mids are getting weaker. Duncan is a gun but Guthrie and Horlin-Smith won’t damage the opposition just yet. Caddy improved slightly just before the finals, Bartel and Kelly nearing the end but of course Johnson and Selwood are still going strong.

They have a really good defense. Arguably the best in the league.

Can see there team sliding despite a stronger fwd line. Their mids will be found out (finally) causing them to drop out of the 4, slightly. Prediction: 5th.

5

Take out Selwood and they’d win about 4 games IMHO.
Midfield group of Stokes - Duncan - Caddy - Guthrie - GENIUS - Horlin-Smith - Murdoch == meeeeeehhhhhh.
Stokes, Johnson and maybe Horlin Smith would maybe get a game for Hawthorn/Sydney/Port.
Selwood, Hawkins & Enright are holding them together.
They’ve put a lot of faith into Vardy but his first 4 years have been about the equivalents of Gumby’s, Henneman’s or Ayce Cordy’s.

Heavy whiff of Essendon c 2005.

6

Quoted Post

Take out Selwood and they'd win about 4 games IMHO. Midfield group of Stokes - Duncan - Caddy - Guthrie - GENIUS - Horlin-Smith - Murdoch == meeeeeehhhhhh. Stokes, Johnson and maybe Horlin Smith would maybe get a game for Hawthorn/Sydney/Port. Selwood, Hawkins & Enright are holding them together. They've put a lot of faith into Vardy but his first 4 years have been about the equivalents of Gumby's, Henneman's or Ayce Cordy's.

Heavy whiff of Essendon c 2005.

Your being a bit rich there. selwood is only 1 player.
but multiple injuries to this group (selwood, Johnson, Bartel) and they would be in strife.

without selwood they would still beat Saints, Melbourne, Carlton, Dogs, Brisbane
and be favourite at simmonds games.

if you look at their fixture they have a tough start to the season.

7

You guys don’t rate Guthrie? I think him a future gun.

8

Depends how you rate SJ I guess. I don’t - too many rubbish idiot turnovers trying to do too much, when there’s an obvious, percentage kick to go to. He has the odd game where it all clicks and he’ll look like some Carey/Ablett/Hird/Maradona-esque freak, but the rest of the time he stinks like few others can. Healthy 25th (in the league) for disposals per game, and 9th for inside 50s - so he’s getting it plenty - equal 68th for goal assists, 5th for clangers, at 64% efficiency. To me that spells out ‘pretty darn stinky’.

Bartel’s still incredibly smart and really really good at picking moments & reading where to get to, but he’s not an engine room player and that’s where they battled. Great icing on a solid cake. I think their cake is pretty crap.
They used those abilities pretty well in 2014. They got where they did by pinching almost every 50/50 (or 40/60) game they were in. Certainly didn’t dominate, percentage of just 114%, well below North’s - and that with 4 x 10 goal wins against the bottom dwellers.

Arguably maggots put them in the top 4, certainly handed them 3 games (Carlton x 2 & Brisbane) they should’ve lost. Nowhere to hide in finals.

Maybe I am being harsh. Without Selwood they’d get to 6 - 8 wins - and that with a front line midfield with an average age of about 33.
Get the bread & sauce ready…

9

Quoted Post

Geelong I know Blease has pace but he isn’t a good enough player
Neither is Varcoe. Definition of a mediocre player who looked far better than he is in a very good side.

The amount of times I’ve seen him “do a Lumumba” and run fast only to then screw the kick up would be impressively high. If Collingwood have a year as poor as 2014 watch for him to look ten times worse than he did at Geelong.

Having said that at least Varcoe can run out a game, Blease struggles to be involved for more than 10 minutes of a full AFL game.

10

If, 2 or 3 years ago, someone had said “A certain club will pick up Cam Delaney, Sam Blease, Rhys Stanley & Mitch Clark, despite all of them still basically sucking at football” Geelong would’ve been about 1000000-1.

11

11 or 12 wins for me. Need improvement from their 20 to 23 yr olds. Could sneak into the eight but will go out in week one.

12

l am another who has grave doubts on SJ. Can do the freakish but attempts to do it too often and gets caught out. He doesn’t have the others around him anymore that draw attention away, and he has to do more of the grunt work, which is not his forte. Give him space though and he turns on the magic. Selwood does do all the grunt work, and a few too many are happy to leave it up to him to do all the hard work, and then win the game. He is good, but he isn’t superman. The rucks look a bit shaky as well. Will scrape into the 8, on the strength of their home ground advantage, but their era of dominance is over.

13

I’m going out on a limb here…
They’ll miss the 8.

They are very talented but from what I can tell, they already have a long injury list which means they’ve got around 10 players that are underdone.

They’ll beat some good teams but across the year, they’ll it tough adjusting to being an average team.

14

Suns with about 8 key players put the Cats to the sword in Townsville. Suns look strong. Geelong … is the carnival over?

15

Quoted Post

Suns with about 8 key players put the Cats to the sword in Townsville. Suns look strong. Geelong ... is the carnival over?

Sydney haven’t won a pre-season game in about 20 years lol

As per Norf thread I’ve still got them 4-6. Only because I’ve been writing them off since 2008 and it hasn’t worked lol

16

Quoted Post

If, 2 or 3 years ago, someone had said "A certain club will pick up Cam Delaney, Sam Blease, Rhys Stanley & Mitch Clark, despite all of them still basically sucking at football" Geelong would've been about 1000000-1.

Agree with that, but take out Mitch Clark. Sucking at football was never his issue.

As to your Essendon c. 2005 comment… They may well be, but they could also be Sydney c. 2009. Not quite there, but not far off enough to have to do a total rebuild before another crack at success.

17

Quoted Post

Quoted Post
If, 2 or 3 years ago, someone had said "A certain club will pick up Cam Delaney, Sam Blease, Rhys Stanley & Mitch Clark, despite all of them still basically sucking at football" Geelong would've been about 1000000-1.

Agree with that, but take out Mitch Clark. Sucking at football was never his issue.

As to your Essendon c. 2005 comment… They may well be, but they could also be Sydney c. 2009. Not quite there, but not far off enough to have to do a total rebuild before another crack at success.

Sydney still had, more or less, half a very very good, proven, experienced team, still with a couple of years left at that point. J Bolton, Goodes, McVeigh, OKeefe, Jolly, Kirk (was 32, 09 was his 2nd last year) Mattner, Rhyce Shaw; with Malceski, Nick Smith, Grundy, Richards & LRT down back. Fair whack of their nucleus from 05/06, plus a few good additions. Their forward line (Micky O, Barry, Nick Davis) had pretty much all gone, the rest was basically there, mostly in their late 20s.

I don’t see that with Geelong. They have Enright, still just about at his peak, and Stevie J who’s at about the same point as Kirk was in 09. Mackie, Bartel, Stokes, Kelly, Lonergan are past 30.
Selwood is even better than he was, Taylor & Hawkins are a great starting point for the spine - but I worry a lot about the midfield. And Scott hasn’t really proven he can develop players like Bomba did.

Basically the tl:dr; version is: Sydney had a couple of years left of their gun mids to develop Hanneberry, Jack etc, and found Kennedy in a dumpster out the back. I don’t think Geelong have those years of Kelly/Bartel etc left for Murdoch, Horlin-Smith etc to come through, and they haven’t found a Josh Kennedy

18
No certainty to make finals but they are a far better chance than before trade period. They got Selwood, Danger and Henderson and I believe they'll still get Zac Smith.

I think they’ll they’ll leapfrog the Crows for a spot in the 8. Not sure if they are top 4, but they definitely can make Prelim week just like North have the last few years.

You have more confidence than me - Most of the older players are on the downward spiral and the younger players are still unproven.

Dangerfield is a gun, S.Sellwood has to overcome injuries and Henderson is average.

19

Such a dangerous thing to say but they look finished

20

Wont make the top eight.