The Cattery has had a wonderful last 3 years, winning 2 premierships and a losing GF, and credit to the club for sticking with its players & coach who eventually grew into the roles of champions.
But how long do champions last?
Here's the Geelong list to look at.
From a Richmond perspective, the thing I notice immediately about the Geelong list is that they have plenty of genuine talls.
The meaning of this is that there is not the pressure on each of their talls to perform or develop week in week out.
Dawson Simpson can take the next 3 or 4 years to develop because they have Ottens, Blake, West & Hawkins to share the ruck duties.
There's no pressure on Lonergan to be kicking 50+ goals in the seniors because Mooney, Hawkins & Podsiadly are there too.
To me, this is something we need to learn.
Our talls are under pressure from year 1 because we don't have enough, let alone experienced ones.
For Geelong, the list is aging, with 12 players now in the twilight phase.
Fortunately for them, their key midfielders - Ablett 25, Bartel 26, Selwood 21 - haven't yet entered this phase. But their lack of depth in this area is beginning to tell. Both last and this season they have started slowly. In coming years it will get harder as Ablett & Bartel drop off and the younger midfielders need to come on.
You can see this in their list, where they have 11 players 21yo or less in the midfield height groups.
There defense is mostly in the twilight zone, we saw last year how it had slowed and this will continue until younger defenders like Hogan, Cowan, Laidler & Menzel find their true feet, but that will take years.
For Geelong, they have to play their window till the end and, like Brisbane before them, when it ends it'll go thud!
Geelong will be up there again this year but a strong midfield, with fast small forwards, will take best advantage of their weaknesses.
But how long do champions last?
Here's the Geelong list to look at.
| 175-179 | 180-184 | 185-189 | 190-194 | 195-199 | 200+ | |
| 28+ | Chapman 28 178 F | Wojcinski 29 180 D | Milburn 32 189 D | Scarlett 30 192 D | Mooney 30 195 F | Ottens 30 202 R |
| Ling 29 189 M | Corey 28 191 M | |||||
| J.Hunt 28 185 D | Podsiadly 28 194 F | |||||
| Rooke 28 189 U | ||||||
| Enright 27 187 D | ||||||
| 25-27 | Byrnes 25 175 F | Kelly 26 183 M | Bartel 26 187 M | Mackie 25 192 D | Lonergan 25 197 F | |
| Stokes 25 177 F | Ablett 25 182 M | S.Johnson 26 189 F | ||||
| 22-24 | Gamble 22 184 F | Taylor 23 193 D | West 22 198 R | Blake 24 200 R | ||
| B.Johnson 23 194 F | ||||||
| Drum 22 191 D | ||||||
| 18-21 | Djerrkura 21 175 M | Selwood 21 182 M | Laidler 20 189 D | Gillies 20 192 D | Hawkins 21 197 F | Simpson 21 206 R |
| Ediriwickrama 19 178 M | Hogan 21 182 D | Allwright 19 187 M | Brown 19 195 F | |||
| Christensen 18 176 M | T.Varcoe 21 180 F | Duncan 18 187 M | Vardy 18 198 R | |||
| Cowan 19 184 D | Menzel 18 188 M | |||||
| T.Hunt 19 183 D | Weston 18 189 U | |||||
| Motlop 19 182 F | ||||||
| A.Varcoe 19 180 F | ||||||
| Stringer 18 182 M | ||||||
The meaning of this is that there is not the pressure on each of their talls to perform or develop week in week out.
Dawson Simpson can take the next 3 or 4 years to develop because they have Ottens, Blake, West & Hawkins to share the ruck duties.
There's no pressure on Lonergan to be kicking 50+ goals in the seniors because Mooney, Hawkins & Podsiadly are there too.
To me, this is something we need to learn.
Our talls are under pressure from year 1 because we don't have enough, let alone experienced ones.
For Geelong, the list is aging, with 12 players now in the twilight phase.
Fortunately for them, their key midfielders - Ablett 25, Bartel 26, Selwood 21 - haven't yet entered this phase. But their lack of depth in this area is beginning to tell. Both last and this season they have started slowly. In coming years it will get harder as Ablett & Bartel drop off and the younger midfielders need to come on.
You can see this in their list, where they have 11 players 21yo or less in the midfield height groups.
There defense is mostly in the twilight zone, we saw last year how it had slowed and this will continue until younger defenders like Hogan, Cowan, Laidler & Menzel find their true feet, but that will take years.
For Geelong, they have to play their window till the end and, like Brisbane before them, when it ends it'll go thud!
Geelong will be up there again this year but a strong midfield, with fast small forwards, will take best advantage of their weaknesses.
