When Geelong historian and former vice-president Bob Gartland told the ABC in March that “the stadium precinct is probably the glue that holds us all together”, it is unlikely that he had in mind the mud at Kardinia Park.
When you feed a stadium off the public purse like a foie gras goose, one thing you don’t expect is a surface that was as redolent as the guernsey the Cats wore to celebrate Edward “Carji” Greeves and the centenary of his Brownlow Medal triumph.
“It was [like] running out in a paddock with how muddy it was,” Western Bulldogs forward Jamarra Ugle-Hagan said. “It was pretty dangerous out there – obviously just had to keep your feet, but it was really wet out there.”
There was a time when football was well acquainted with mud. A malodorous muck that drove players to stick their head over the ball, and to get it forward without fuss. A mud that was cut up in curtain raisers – as we had between the VFL Cats and Dogs in another nod to nostalgia on Saturday night. A mud that stuck, clods of it the size of a ruck’s fist.
The football may not have been as adroit, but it was absorbing. And, as Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “even in the mud and scum of things, something always, always sings”.
Proper Winter weather.#AFLCatsDogs pic.twitter.com/3WHv8qa6sM
— AFL (@AFL) July 20, 2024
On a cold Saturday night on Moorabool Street, that something was the Western Bulldogs.
The Dogs are one of the best stoppage teams in the AFL – particularly when it comes to scoring from them – and despite going into the game with three tall forwards, looked to be better suited to the conditions. After a quarter of football, it was perceptible. Adam Treloar, Marcus Bontempelli and Tom Liberatore cowed their Cats counterparts, as did Ed Richards, who is fast becoming a crucial cog in the Dogs’ midfield. By night’s end, Richards would get the ball 29 times and kick two goals.
This laid the groundwork for a team that was much more connected – forward with with Ugle-Hagan (four goals) and Cody Weightman (whose ball handling belied the conditions); and back with Rory Lobb.
The oft-maligned Lobb has been a revelation in defence after escaping MRO scrutiny for a cringing mid-season performance on TikTok, and on Saturday night took more marks than his opponent, Jeremy Cameron, had possessions. Cameron’s teammates across half-forward, Olivers Henry and Dempsey, only had the ball 10 times between them.
Geelong’s captain, Patrick Dangerfield, also had a dirty night, and could only find the ball half a dozen times in the second half. But he had plenty of company, with the Cats soundly dismantled on just about every category that matters, not least the scoreboard in a 47-point defeat. None of the Cats’ goals came during either the first or last quarter – something that hasn’t happened since 1970.
The win puts the Bulldogs within half a game of the top eight and – having beaten the second- and third-placed teams in consecutive weeks - they can turn to a talented, balanced list that could take them a fair way come September.
But what of Geelong?
“We had a really bad night and that was clear from early in the game,” said Cats coach Chris Scott, dabbling in understatement. “If you are off, you can lose to anyone, and if the opposition are really good, you are going to find yourself under pressure, but I thought it was an uncharacteristic performance. If that happens regularly, you just become a bad team. I do not think that is us at the moment.”
In a year where the difference between a win or a loss can mean a move between third and eighth, definitive statements on a team’s prospects can be fraught.
The Cats have a favourable enough draw over the coming five rounds to right the ship, but their form at their once nearly impenetrable home ground is, dare we labour the metaphor … muddy.
Geelong’s home record this year is 4-3, with the losses including a pair to visitors from interstate in Port Adelaide and Greater Western Sydney. Western Bulldogs have now won consecutive matches at the ground, having not triumphed there in 11 attempts in the previous 20 years.
Geelong’s two remaining fixtures at GMHBA Stadium this year are against Adelaide and West Coast – both games they’d be expected to win to shore up their spot in the top eight. But the manner of losses like on Saturday night make you question just how far they might go.
In years gone by, you could rely on a week’s worth of editorials on Geelong having the right to play a final at GMHBA Stadium. Should they earn a home final this year, you’d have to wonder if they’d be dirty if they did.
