4 Points: Geelong facing a big finals dilemma

4 Points: Geelong facing a big finals dilemma

Geelong spent a year searching for answers. They tried things, they tinkered but no one solution convinced them completely so they went back to where they started and told Rhys Stanley he was their ruckman.

The team that finished adrift of the very best last year had long recognised their ruck was a shortcoming. It was not the only one but they fixed others: they overhauled much of their midfield, put young players into more important roles, found other avenues to goal.

Eyes on prize: Brodie Grundy and Rhys Stanley compete for the ball in round one.

Eyes on prize: Brodie Grundy and Rhys Stanley compete for the ball in round one.Credit:AAP

But last year’s structural problem remains a structural problem this year. On Friday night against the season’s best ruckman, Collingwood’s Brodie Grundy, they will play their least worst option.

The Magpies, too, have questions. They spent last year wondering if they could really win a flag with a seven foot American convert as their key forward. They went close, and Mason Cox was a revelation in the preliminary final ... and a mystery since. Where last year Collingwood wondered whether they could do it with him, now they wonder if they are better placed without him.


Cox is injured, but the poke in his eye could be the poke in the eye Collingwood needed. Without Cox, Collingwood are scoring slightly more and taking more marks inside 50. The opposition they have played might have something to do with it but they are better without him.

Cox had been ineffective for most of the year but he always drew the ball. Without him it is not obvious who the Magpies’ first-choice key target would be forward of the ball.

Pie in the sky: Collingwood forward Mason Cox appears unlikely to play again in 2019.


Unfortunately for Collingwood it also means there is no big forward to run up to the wing and compete for the get-out-of-jail kick down the line out of defence. The problem for Cox is he is probably a better ruckman than forward, but that won’t happen while he is behind Grundy. He either has to work out how to be a better forward or do as Jarrod Witts did and find a club where he can ruck.

The Magpies bring in Jaidyn Stephenson and Jordan De Goey to that forward line and Steele Sidebottom to the midfield and maybe forward. They look more like the structure of Richmond’s premiership forward line than West Coast’s.

That raises the question Collingwood (and Geelong) will ask this week. Having settled the question over whether Darcy Moore will play, they now ask where he will play. At least one of Moore and Jordan Roughead will play back. But do they both play back, as was the structure for much of the year? That had Cox ahead of the ball and two keys in defence. Now Cox is out, where are they better served playing the two talls, forward or back?


Geelong has two big power forwards in Tom Hawkins and Esava Ratugolea so it’s tempting to have Moore and Roughead both back. Roughead would probably still need to be the second ruckman.

If it doesn’t happen and they keep one of them forward, can they play Jeremy Howe on Ratugolea?
What does Geelong do in anticipation of Collingwood’s dilemma? If Collingwood play both of their talls back, which Collingwood forward does Lachie Henderson play on? Or do they send him forward to stretch Collingwood’s defence? Collingwood have Brody Mihocek and a bunch of smaller marking players leaving no obvious opponent left over for Henderson if Harry Taylor goes to Mihocek. Or do they put Henderson to Mihocek and have Taylor play small on a Hoskin-Elliott type?

Mark Blicavs’ athleticism means he is adept playing tall and small but he also gives Geelong the versatility to help answer the first question we raised about the ruck. Yes, they have used him again this year as a ruckman and found he was more valuable as a defender, but against an opposition like Collingwood the idea of Blicavs working in tandem with Stanley and double-teaming Grundy, as West Coast did in last year’s grand final, would be tempting.

Collingwood have never used the forward structure they will most likely play with on Friday. They have seldom had all of De Goey, Stephenson and Jamie Elliott in the same team but when it has happened they have also had Mason Cox playing. Collingwood used to have a standard tactic when they played Geelong: send Levi Greenwood to Joel Selwood. They didn’t do that in round one and lost.


It is doubtful Greenwood will be played on Selwood again in the qualifying final as they prefer to keep him in the back six. Selwood has not been as critical a player this year so Tim Kelly might be the player to tag, if they tag anyone. And if they do that Jack Crisp would seem the better choice.

Scott Pendlebury playing on Patty Dangerfield would be tantalising. Pendlebury would lose out in a foot race, but at stoppages and in ball use around the ground the Magpies skipper would command respect.

Cameron's Giant task

When the Bulldogs smashed the Giants on this ground two weeks ago the soon-to-be-confirmed Coleman medallist Jeremy Cameron didn’t play.

When the Bulldogs beat the Giants on this ground in the preliminary final of 2016 Cameron might as well not have played. He had a stinker.

Giant leap: Jeremy Cameron flies against Gold Coast in his Coleman Medal-sealing performance.


Cameron is a star, he just had a bad day. But he also has not yet had a really good day in finals. He has been OK – he booted four against the Swans in the 2016 qualifying final – but he has not yet owned a final the way he can.

He needs to. The Giants have the most potentially dangerous forward line in the competition with Cameron, Jeremy Finalyson and Harry Himmelberg but it has only occasionally clicked as a unit.

Against Richmond at this ground early in the year Cameron kicked seven, Finlayson five. Against Collingwood in July, at the same ground, the Giants' forward line delivered in the best way it has yet - Cameron, Finlayson and Himmelberg kicked 13 goals between them.

For the team that has all other finalists nervous, the Bulldogs backline is a tender point. Cameron, and his fellow travellers, need to have the sort of final they are capable of for the Giants to resist the gathering momentum of the Dogs.

Lions launch project Dusty

Brisbane had a minor win against Richmond in round 23, when they actually lost.

The stat they will dwell on out of that game was not that Lachie Neale raised his bat for a half century of touches. It was that Dustin Martin had half the number of inside fifties than he had in the previous two matches.

Martin was running at double figures for inside fifties against West Coast (13) and Melbourne (11).

Storming home: Richmond's Dustin Martin holds off a pair of hungry Lions.

Storming home: Richmond's Dustin Martin holds off a pair of hungry Lions.Credit:Wayne Ludbey

When Martin operates at that level, the opposition simply have little chance of winning because his decisions about where to put the ball and his ability to put it there are as good as anyone in the competition. Richmond score when Martin is the one delivering the ball forward.

So, something the Lions did sort of worked but also sort of didn’t – Martin was still utterly destructive whenever he got the ball – but the Lions limited his inside fifties.

How the Tigers use the ball going forward is critical, and one reason why keeping it out of Martin’s hands is so important.

Harris Andrews is a star and one of the most underrated threats to Richmond. The Tigers will again try to keep the ball away from him by separating Tom Lynch and Jack Riewoldt. They'll keep looking to work through whoever Marcus Adams is playing on, or rather whoever Andrews is not playing on.

Bombers' target

Essendon’s conundrum is that the most effective way to play West Coast recently is the least effective way Essendon play.

Outpaced: Adam Saad breaks away from West Coast's Luke Shuey in round 14.

Outpaced: Adam Saad breaks away from West Coast's Luke Shuey in round 14.Credit:AAP

The teams that have beaten the Eagles in Perth – most glaringly Hawthorn in round 23, but Collingwood before that, too – did so by slowing them down and holding them up in getting out of their back line.

In defence, both team set up to stifle the Eagles so they couldn’t get the ball forward quickly. This is not exactly inventive coaching, everyone wants to keep the ball in their forward line.


They played possession footy and slowed the pace of the game. They were patient using the ball going forward and tried to keep it away from Jeremy McGovern, Tom Barrass and Shannon Hurn.

But Essendon look best with pace on the game. Their runners from half back are their biggest weapon. When they take the game to the opposition with foot speed they create chaos and panic ahead of the ball.

It has also often left Essendon vulnerable to being quickly scored against in the other direction.

Essendon’s two key forwards, Shaun McKernan and Mitch Brown, are role players who need to be able to keep McGovern and Barrass honest. They need to leave space, or create a contest that brings the ball to ground for the Dons’ biggest threats Jake Stringer, Orazio Fantasia and Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti.

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