Explaining Geelong's Post-Bye Freefall

For the first time since round one, the Geelong Football Club has surrendered its place at the top of the 2019 AFL Ladder.

After more than four months perched at the summit, the Cats have been replaced by their Round 22 conqueror, Brisbane Lions, who ran down the Cats in the final quarter, emerging as the fitter, hungrier and more inspired unit.

For Geelong, season 2019 is proceeding in an uncomfortably similar fashion to how so many of their post-2011 premiership campaigns have unfolded, with the Cats possibly headed for yet another meek September exit after a mostly-excellent regular season.

At the conclusion of round eight, 2018, after beating eventual Grand Finalists, Collingwood at the MCG, Geelong sat third on the ladder with their star-filled lineup led by the likes of Patrick Dangerfield, Tom Hawkins and captain, Joel Selwood, looking extremely potent.

Instead, the Cats barely made the AFL Finals and were promptly pummelled by Melbourne, managing only six goals while being trounced in both the contested possession count (-18) and clearances (-10).

It was a similar story the year prior, too

On top of the ladder at the halfway mark with a 9-2 record, only to be humiliated by the tune of 61 points in a Preliminary Final beat-down by Adelaide.

The Cats' sorry September exits in recent years prompted some genuine off-season soul-searching at Kardinia Park, with coach Chris Scott and his team, acknowledging the need for some serious list changes in order to realistically compete come finals time.

Chiefly, the Cats concluded they required a significantly harder edge in order to mix it with the best each September.

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During the 2018 player movement period, they traded for Bulldogs premiership hero, Luke Dalhaus, as well as relentless, but oft-injured Swan, Gary Rohan. They promoted Geelong VFL hero Tom Atkins from the rookie list while whispering through Gryan Miers’ dreadlocks that if he were able to maintain the ferocity that belies his size, there’d be a place for him in the 2019 lineup as well.

A fiercer, more robust Geelong was promised in 2019, and for the first half of the season, that’s precisely what they delivered.

The Cats tore through the season’s first couple of months, posting an 11-1 record through their first 12 games, sitting two matches clear on the top of the ladder with a healthy percentage gap on their nearest rivals.

Indeed their defence and new-found tenacity were shining through, with the Cats winning the contested possession count in 11 of their first 12 contests.

At the halfway mark of the competition, Geelong seemed to have resolved so many of the questions regarding their weaker underbelly and were - justifiably - premiership favourites.

Not anymore.

With one regular-season game to go, the Cats have run out of puff, with Stats Insider’s AFL futures model projecting them as a 19% chance of winning the AFL Premiership, down from as high as 35% at the height of their powers.

Geelong has lost five of its nine games since their bye week, and even now face the very real possibility of falling out of the top four entirely.

In their second-half swoon, they’ve won the contested possession count just four times, while their one per cent acts appear to have fallen off a cliff.

The steeliness which Chris Scott successfully injected into his team in the first half of the season seems to have taken its toll, with the club now looking decidedly exhausted.

Saturday’s loss to the Lions at the Gabba worked as a perfect embodiment of their season so far. They were terrific early, and, destined for a comfortable win, were reeled in and completely overrun by their northern counterparts in the latter stages.

Their exhaustion has also had a tangible link with their scoring ability as well.

In the first half of the season, Geelong seemed to need only a sniff of the ball inside their forward 50 area, to be able to turn their progression into a goal.

Just once in those blistering first 12 games, did Geelong not convert their forward 50 entries at a rate better than one goal every five entries. Since the bye, they’ve gone under that mark just four times.

While many point to the mid-season bye as a contributing factor to Geelong’s undoing in 2019, the pre-Finals bye is now what the Cats are desperately crying out for.

This is an exhausted team which in recent weeks has tried incorporating fresher bodies such as Jed Bews and Quinton Narkle into the lineup, and which may also consider the likes of Charlie Constable, Wylie Buzza or even Nakia Cockatoo as Finals approach.

It's incredible that when analysing the Cats in 2019 there’s a sense we’re now dealing with a club in crisis, and when you factor in the top-end talent on this list, coupled with how frequently their seasons have frittered away at the business end, then it is understandable the spotlight is shining directly upon Geelong heading into another Finals campaign.

On the positive side, Geelong is still very much in contention to reclaim the minor premiership this weekend, while they still harbour genuine premiership aspirations - even if their form of late would indicate they are a long way off their best.  

While the Cats 2019 dream has turned into something of a nightmare in recent weeks, Geelong still has the ability to rediscover their early season form. 

Even if time is rapidly running out.

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