Preview 2023 Pre-Season discussion

[cats_09]

Auditions for the new "King of the Bandaged Head" have begun...

 

[Kitcat]

Auditions for the new "King of the Bandaged Head" have begun...

Blics is trying out a new way to keep his hair out of the eyes.

 

[Spearman]

Blics is trying out a new way to keep his hair out of the eyes.

rampant nose hair?

 

[And_ROOS]

One could say if it was so unique could we do it again?

I say hell yes we can.

Bring on 2023.

2022 was a unique flag, but with our smart drafting we have set ourselves up for more success over the next 4 or 5 years.

 

[Phipppppa]

2022 was a unique flag, but with our smart drafting we have set ourselves up for more success over the next 4 or 5 years.

Geez another 5 years wouldn’t we all love that. But I’m not trying to get too ahead of myself.

But Jhye Clark will either be a norm Smith or Brownlow medalist by the end of his career. Was a very clever draft.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

The players returned to training today.

The gallery is up on the website for those interested.

Young Oscar Murdoch might break the odd heart

 

[Farmer2Goggin]

Neale looks like he is in very good nick.

Would love him to get an initial run of 5 or so games and see what he can deliver.
I have a very good feeling about Shannon, reckon he could follow in SDK’s footsteps and make a big impact.

 

[Drunkcat]

Would love him to get an initial run of 5 or so games and see what he can deliver.
I have a very good feeling about Shannon, reckon he could follow in SDK’s footsteps and make a big impact.

Yes, I think there was about half dozen of us that liked Neale in his first year, just showed a few things, and last year improved more again if he can keep improving you will be spot on Farmer2Goggin

 

[Phipppppa]

Neale will step up massively in Hawks last season, will get a fair bit of game time and will show us he’s a reasonable replacement.

 

[dazbroncos]

Neale looks like he is in very good nick.

primed!

GO Catters

 

[dazbroncos]

Would love him to get an initial run of 5 or so games and see what he can deliver.
I have a very good feeling about Shannon, reckon he could follow in SDK’s footsteps and make a big impact.

Agree with all of this...

ill keep the SDK hopes of comparison in the dark for now. Neale has work to do and there will be enough pressure without those type of comparisons.... but i like aiming high too

GO Catters

 

[Section 5]

A little bit of information for this board that people may not have heard about yet

Our footy boss Danny Daly mentioned the Lions will be playing Sydney in NSW and then Geelong in Birsbane in the preseason
I assume it is correct as i doubt he would mention it otherwise
Daley also mentioned it will be played on a Thursday or Friday night

The Geelong V Brisbane game is to be the one official AFL preseason Community series game for each side.
It will be played at our new training facility, Brighton Homes Arena
It is a new ground, and an interstate AFL team was always going to "open" the facility in the 1st year.
I suppose politicians need to see where all their money was spent

Most on this board would not have heard about this ground. So, below a link for more details
It is the exact same size as Marvel Stadium
For Geelong supporters in Brisbane, the ground is located in Springfield (please no Simpson's jokes, yes why not) west of Brisbane CBD
Just google Brighton Homes Arena Springfield for directions
32 km from Brisbane CBD or 40-45 minutes' drive
45 km from Airport and also a 40-45 minutes' drive
Brisbane train and bus station both located 100 meters from the ground entry
You can see the rail/bus station in the image below. Background between the 2 oval lights

For the Geelong players the ground is in excellent condition
The away teams' rooms are supposed to be very good, as you would expect a new structure should be
The away players rooms are located in the grandstand on the right of image below

Brighton Homes Arena (Springfield Central Stadium) | Austadiums

Information about Brighton Homes Arena (Springfield Central Stadium) in Brisbane including venue layout, history, records, events, map, tickets, directions and accommodation.

www.austadiums.com

Below image taken shortly after the turf was laid in late October 2022, and prior to the AFLW grand final game in late November
The only structure not fully completed yet is the large video screen

 

[Shadow89]

A little bit of information for this board that people may not have heard about yet

Our footy boss Danny Daly mentioned the Lions will be playing Sydney in NSW and then Geelong in Birsbane in the preseason
I assume it is correct as i doubt he would mention it otherwise
Daley also mentioned it will be played on a Thursday or Friday night

The Geelong V Brisbane game is to be the one official AFL preseason Community series game for each side.
It will be played at our new training facility, Brighton Homes Arena
It is a new ground, and an interstate AFL team was always going to "open" the facility in the 1st year.
I suppose politicians need to see where all their money was spent

Most on this board would not have heard about this ground. So, below a link for more details
It is the exact same size as Marvel Stadium
For Geelong supporters in Brisbane, the ground is located in Springfield (please no Simpson's jokes, yes why not) west of Brisbane CBD
Just google Brighton Homes Arena Springfield for directions
32 km from Brisbane CBD or 40-45 minutes' drive
45 km from Airport and also a 40-45 minutes' drive
Brisbane train and bus station both located 100 meters from the ground entry
You can see the rail/bus station in the image below. Background between the 2 oval lights

For the Geelong players the ground is in excellent condition
The away teams' rooms are supposed to be very good, as you would expect a new structure should be
The away players rooms are located in the grandstand on the right of image below

Brighton Homes Arena (Springfield Central Stadium) | Austadiums

Information about Brighton Homes Arena (Springfield Central Stadium) in Brisbane including venue layout, history, records, events, map, tickets, directions and accommodation.

www.austadiums.com

Below image taken shortly after the turf was laid in late October 2022, and prior to the AFLW grand final game in late November
The only structure not fully completed yet is the large video screen

Cheers for sharing all that info mate - good stuff and much appreciated!

 

[Stokey]

I feel the difficulty other teams will have in trying to replicate what we did to win in 2022 is the incredible mix of talent and flexibility. And as is always the case with premierships, an enormous amount of planets had to align.
It wasn’t just a “way” or style of playing. The craziness of Cameron and Blicavs free-styling up and down the arcs.
Getting an AA 50 goal elite small forward for peanuts out of the blue!
An AA quality 6’8” KPD in his first full year of AFL who simply didn’t fall off at all.
An AA FF who in his 34th year actually IMPROVED!!
The oldest team to ever take the field winning a GF, yet there is an abundance of youth playing key roles and a trade period where we basically picked up 4 Draft Top 10 midfielders to replace our only real significant loss in Selwood. Only time will tell how deep the loss of his presence will be but as is being discussed in another thread, we are stacked with leaders all over the ground and around the club.
This was a very unique flag.
Good luck “copying” it….


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Clubs can try and copy the game style but its is hard to replicate the mix of strength and gut running we have that allows us to pull it off.

 

[And_ROOS]

Geez another 5 years wouldn’t we all love that. But I’m not trying to get too ahead of myself.

But Jhye Clark will either be a norm Smith or Brownlow medalist by the end of his career. Was a very clever draft.

I think we have a down year the season after Hawk retires, because that will take a significant rejigging of our forwardline considering he kicks goals, is an assist beast and rucks. Neale will take a while to be that good.

And at some point we lose Danger, Tuohy, Smith and Duncan, and they are all massive holes.

But we have some real gun youngsters on our list. And in 2 years time Holmes will be elite. So if we have 4 years of deep finals runs, maybe another flag, we will have one bad year where we finish 7th, 8th or 9th, and then back into it.

We are pretty bloody lucky to follow this club.

 

[PzBlinky]

A little bit of information for this board that people may not have heard about yet

Our footy boss Danny Daly mentioned the Lions will be playing Sydney in NSW and then Geelong in Birsbane in the preseason
I assume it is correct as i doubt he would mention it otherwise
Daley also mentioned it will be played on a Thursday or Friday night

The Geelong V Brisbane game is to be the one official AFL preseason Community series game for each side.
It will be played at our new training facility, Brighton Homes Arena
It is a new ground, and an interstate AFL team was always going to "open" the facility in the 1st year.
I suppose politicians need to see where all their money was spent

Most on this board would not have heard about this ground. So, below a link for more details
It is the exact same size as Marvel Stadium
For Geelong supporters in Brisbane, the ground is located in Springfield (please no Simpson's jokes, yes why not) west of Brisbane CBD
Just google Brighton Homes Arena Springfield for directions
32 km from Brisbane CBD or 40-45 minutes' drive
45 km from Airport and also a 40-45 minutes' drive
Brisbane train and bus station both located 100 meters from the ground entry
You can see the rail/bus station in the image below. Background between the 2 oval lights

For the Geelong players the ground is in excellent condition
The away teams' rooms are supposed to be very good, as you would expect a new structure should be
The away players rooms are located in the grandstand on the right of image below

Brighton Homes Arena (Springfield Central Stadium) | Austadiums

Information about Brighton Homes Arena (Springfield Central Stadium) in Brisbane including venue layout, history, records, events, map, tickets, directions and accommodation.

www.austadiums.com

Below image taken shortly after the turf was laid in late October 2022, and prior to the AFLW grand final game in late November
The only structure not fully completed yet is the large video screen

AWESOME! Thanks for the tip-off. I live just up the highway so having to travel about 15 mins to watch the Cats play (even a pre-season) is freaking fantastic.

 

[Shadow89]

I think we have a down year the season after Hawk retires, because that will take a significant rejigging of our forwardline considering he kicks goals, is an assist beast and rucks. Neale will take a while to be that good.

And at some point we lose Danger, Tuohy, Smith and Duncan, and they are all massive holes.

But we have some real gun youngsters on our list. And in 2 years time Holmes will be elite. So if we have 4 years of deep finals runs, maybe another flag, we will have one bad year where we finish 7th, 8th or 9th, and then back into it.

We are pretty bloody lucky to follow this club.

For mine, it basically depends on Conway and Neale coming on as we hope, for us to stay in constant contention. If they do, this is an example (using our current players) of our Best 23 side when everyone bar Jez, Guth, Blics and Stew are gone from our list of veterans (2025 most likely):

B: Bews, SDK, J. Henry
HB: Stewart, Kolo, Zuthrie
C: Holmes, Blicavs, Bowes
FO: Conway, C. Guthrie, T. Atkins
HF: O. Henry, J. Cameron, Miers
F: Stengle, S. Neale, Close
INT: Bruhn, Parfitt, O'Connor, Ratugolea, J. Clark

EMG: S. Simpson, Knevitt, Dempsey


Retired/Traded/Delisted Senior Players - Danger, Hawkins, Rohan, Stanley, Tuohy, Duncan, I. Smith, Menegola, Ceglar
New Faces in Best 23 replacing Veterans - Bowes, S. Neale, O. Henry, Conway, Ratugolea, Bruhn, J. Clark

*****************************************

It's completely hypothetical, but if we say do go after TDK at the end of this year, that makes us even stronger. Then there's draft, FA and Trade periods for '23 and '24, whilst there's also development of guys like Mullin, Willis, Whyte etc. to come too. We're already into our rebuild, and we've just won a Premiership. It's insane just how well managed we are compared to some other clubs, haha.

Even if we do fall as you were saying, we have the core once again to build on, rather than starting from scratch like Hawks, Crows, Eagles, North etc. Never a missed year as a Geelong supporter - and not many other clubs (if any) can say that

 

[And_ROOS]

For mine, it basically depends on Conway and Neale coming on as we hope, for us to stay in constant contention. If they do, this is an example (using our current players) of our Best 23 side when everyone bar Jez, Guth, Blics and Stew are gone from our list of veterans (2025 most likely):

B: Bews, SDK, J. Henry
HB: Stewart, Kolo, Zuthrie
C: Holmes, Blicavs, Bowes
FO: Conway, C. Guthrie, T. Atkins
HF: O. Henry, J. Cameron, Miers
F: Stengle, S. Neale, Close
INT: Bruhn, Parfitt, O'Connor, Ratugolea, J. Clark

EMG: S. Simpson, Knevitt, Dempsey


Retired/Traded/Delisted Senior Players - Danger, Hawkins, Rohan, Stanley, Tuohy, Duncan, I. Smith, Menegola, Ceglar
New Faces in Best 23 replacing Veterans - Bowes, S. Neale, O. Henry, Conway, Ratugolea, Bruhn, J. Clark

*****************************************

It's completely hypothetical, but if we say do go after TDK at the end of this year, that makes us even stronger. Then there's draft, FA and Trade periods for '23 and '24, whilst there's also development of guys like Mullin, Willis, Whyte etc. to come too. We're already into our rebuild, and we've just won a Premiership. It's insane just how well managed we are compared to some other clubs, haha.

Even if we do fall as you were saying, we have the core once again to build on, rather than starting from scratch like Hawks, Crows, Eagles, North etc. Never a missed year as a Geelong supporter - and not many other clubs (if any) can say that

The free agents in that team will be interesting. I would imagine we pick up a veteran or two, and we likely get a wantaway top 20 player who wants the lifestyle and constant finals we have.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

A little bit of information for this board that people may not have heard about yet

Our footy boss Danny Daly mentioned the Lions will be playing Sydney in NSW and then Geelong in Birsbane in the preseason
I assume it is correct as i doubt he would mention it otherwise
Daley also mentioned it will be played on a Thursday or Friday night

The Geelong V Brisbane game is to be the one official AFL preseason Community series game for each side.
It will be played at our new training facility, Brighton Homes Arena
It is a new ground, and an interstate AFL team was always going to "open" the facility in the 1st year.
I suppose politicians need to see where all their money was spent

Most on this board would not have heard about this ground. So, below a link for more details
It is the exact same size as Marvel Stadium
For Geelong supporters in Brisbane, the ground is located in Springfield (please no Simpson's jokes, yes why not) west of Brisbane CBD
Just google Brighton Homes Arena Springfield for directions
32 km from Brisbane CBD or 40-45 minutes' drive
45 km from Airport and also a 40-45 minutes' drive
Brisbane train and bus station both located 100 meters from the ground entry
You can see the rail/bus station in the image below. Background between the 2 oval lights

For the Geelong players the ground is in excellent condition
The away teams' rooms are supposed to be very good, as you would expect a new structure should be
The away players rooms are located in the grandstand on the right of image below

Brighton Homes Arena (Springfield Central Stadium) | Austadiums

Information about Brighton Homes Arena (Springfield Central Stadium) in Brisbane including venue layout, history, records, events, map, tickets, directions and accommodation.

www.austadiums.com

Below image taken shortly after the turf was laid in late October 2022, and prior to the AFLW grand final game in late November
The only structure not fully completed yet is the large video screen

It's beautiful!

 

[CatToTheFuture]

I think we have a down year the season after Hawk retires, because that will take a significant rejigging of our forwardline considering he kicks goals, is an assist beast and rucks. Neale will take a while to be that good.

And at some point we lose Danger, Tuohy, Smith and Duncan, and they are all massive holes.

But we have some real gun youngsters on our list. And in 2 years time Holmes will be elite. So if we have 4 years of deep finals runs, maybe another flag, we will have one bad year where we finish 7th, 8th or 9th, and then back into it.

We are pretty bloody lucky to follow this club.

I've been rewatching games from last season recently and I've realised how much I take Hawkins for granted. He's amazing

 

[thejester]

Anyone feel there was a sense of an ending to 2022 GF where it represented the final hurrah of this group?

That was my feeling during the finals - it would be the last chance for this group. But now they’ve done it, and so emphatically, I’m not so sure.

 

[cats_09]

I think we have a down year the season after Hawk retires, because that will take a significant rejigging of our forwardline considering he kicks goals, is an assist beast and rucks. Neale will take a while to be that good.

And at some point we lose Danger, Tuohy, Smith and Duncan, and they are all massive holes.

But we have some real gun youngsters on our list. And in 2 years time Holmes will be elite. So if we have 4 years of deep finals runs, maybe another flag, we will have one bad year where we finish 7th, 8th or 9th, and then back into it.

We are pretty bloody lucky to follow this club.

I agree that Dangerfield & the class of Duncan will be harder to replace, but thinking Smith & Tuohy will be easier transitions

I don't think Smith's retirement will necessarily leave a massive hole - as we saw in 2022 he was already shifted from the wing, the spot where he made his name, to play more from the forward line where he's form was indifferent at times. His flexibility is an asset, but we've already been transitioning others into roles we've seen him play

Tuohy is one we've seen over recent years play a variety of roles, and it may be that in game flexibility which is missed, but like with Smith - the coaches have shown trust in the next gen coming through compared with the idea that Tuohy is a lock in a certain position, such as the running defender we saw throughout his career

The likes of Menegola, Rohan, Smith & Tuohy are players that I wouldn't be totally surprised to not be locks in the best 22/23 come seasons season, - they'll be given opportunities to show their best 22, but as the season continues & if the next group coming through are stepping up where their form warrants selection (think Zach G last year), then it may be a few of these guys who are vulnerable if they're not at the top of their games

 

[kittypurry]

AWESOME! Thanks for the tip-off. I live just up the highway so having to travel about 15 mins to watch the Cats play (even a pre-season) is freaking fantastic.

Hello fellow Brisbane Geelong supporter!

It's a bit more of a hike for me (35 mins) but so excited we get to watch the boys in some pre-season action assuming this info is correct (not sure why it wouldn't be it just seems too good to be true! I miss watching the boys in person!)

Geelong has a large supporter base here in SE Queensland so it'll be fun to be around some Cats supporters again.

 

[CatToTheFuture]

I agree that Dangerfield & the class of Duncan will be harder to replace, but thinking Smith & Tuohy will be easier transitions

I don't think Smith's retirement will necessarily leave a massive hole - as we saw in 2022 he was already shifted from the wing, the spot where he made his name, to play more from the forward line where he's form was indifferent at times. His flexibility is an asset, but we've already been transitioning others into roles we've seen him play

Tuohy is one we've seen over recent years play a variety of roles, and it may be that in game flexibility which is missed, but like with Smith - the coaches have shown trust in the next gen coming through compared with the idea that Tuohy is a lock in a certain position, such as the running defender we saw throughout his career

The likes of Menegola, Rohan, Smith & Tuohy are players that I wouldn't be totally surprised to not be locks in the best 22/23 come seasons season, - they'll be given opportunities to show their best 22, but as the season continues & if the next group coming through are stepping up where their form warrants selection (think Zach G last year), then it may be a few of these guys who are vulnerable if they're not at the top of their games

One thing about Smith we will miss though is his drive when the chips are down. Early in the season he was playing at a different level when we were behind and others were falling off. Kept us in so many games. Don't think it's easy to replicate that headspace

 

[Scorpio]

Brisbane is a good option for the pre-season hit out. Better to play another top four contender and get primed for Round One. Collingwood will want to make a point that they are not one year wonders, and start the season by knocking us off at home.