BREAKING NEWS: The Cats are the strongest premiership contender in years—could.. Read More

The Cats could be the most peculiar premiership challenger in recent memory.

The route to their present top-four position in 2024 is known. They appeared surprisingly potent after winning their first seven games. They were going back to the mean after losing their next four.

They’ve been destroyed by Western Bulldogs, Carlton, and Gold Coast, and they’re one of the few teams who consistently destroy a formidable Hawthorn squad.

They have four victories and four losses against the top eight clubs in the league right now. They have fluctuated and ebbed.

They play two of the league’s bottom five clubs, St Kilda and West Coast, in the final two weeks of the home-and-away campaign.

Though this is a squad that is rarely discussed, it is completely conceivable for them to end with a home qualifying final.

There’s a good reason for that: Geelong in 2024 has been extremely confusing.

When we aim to assess a contender, we tend to try to analyze 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 pressurized 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.

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.

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.

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.