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Chapter 1: What is the significance of the Geelong vs. Sydney match?
Strategy 2026 with Brenton Sanderson. It brings us to the match of the round. It's down the highway when Geelong and Sydney meet. So this is third playing first. She's pretty rich pickings here. We're at round 11. Have you now got a clear picture of the Cats in your mind?
Oh, have I ever, especially after last week. And I think, Gerard, when you remove the opening round 56-point loss to the Gold Coast Suns, if you can possibly forget about that if you're a Cats supporter, Their profile over the next nine games has been so impressive and arguably back to close to their best. So they've won seven of their next nine matches.
Their only defeats was the one point Easter Monday loss to Hawthorne, which could have gone either way. That was a classic.
Chapter 2: How has Geelong's performance evolved this season?
And then that 30-point defeat to Port Adelaide, which is the one game they have played really poorly in outside of that Gold Coast opening round. But I think beyond the win-loss record, what stands out most is how complete Geelong's game profile has become after probably a sluggish offensive and poor defensive start to the season.
Their ball movement at the start of the year just lacked a bit of fluency and speed, and that's clearly returned now. And once again, they're scoring really effectively from the back half. Their transition game is, again, a genuine weapon.
And their scores from turnover rank inside the top five in the competition, highlighting that their defensive system, you know, it's been a long trademark under Chris Scott. That's definitely returned to the level that makes them so hard. and so frustrating to play against.
But the thing which is unusual for Geelong, because you don't normally associate it with Chris Scott coach teams, is they're starting to score from stoppage. So Geelong currently ranked number one in the AFL for points generated from scores from stoppage. So it's mostly been with Chris Scott, you know, control, territory, ball retention.
But we're starting to see some explosive stoppage scoring, which is excellent. So that's another layer that Chris Scott has added to this team by around 11 in this first half of the season. So we are seeing the Cats have that ability to be able to shift gears in offense. They can play like Sydney. They can play that fast corridor, handball, run chains, aggressive overlap and run.
And other times they're slowing the game down. They're retaining possession. They're shaping the ground and they're denying their opponents the ball for long stretches and now scores from stoppage. So tough team to try and plan for. And, yeah, Dean Cox now with that sort of dual-tempo offense that Cats are playing, it's going to be interesting to see how Dean Cox attacks this tactically.
All right. So Chris Scott first. What's his focuses this week preparing for Sydney? Well, the only thing, if you want to ask me if there's a weakness at the moment that, you know, potentially the Cats might be vulnerable, they still are conceding marks in their defensive 50. So I just said how great they've been defensively.
And they're coming up against the best side in the competition, the Swans, who have been so creative. And the way they've attacked and got the ball inside forward 50 and found marks has been excellent. They did it well, though, last week, the Cats against Brisbane. I know that's another team that do use the ball so effectively inside forward 50.
So that would probably be the one area that I think Chris Scott, when he's preparing for the Swans, he'd just want to get that right. So... I know both of these teams, both Geelong and Sydney, they both won a front half game and they've both won territory this year. Swans are averaging plus 10 inside 50s per game. Geelong sit around sort of plus six.
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