Cats leave Scorpions sore and lost for skills

By Peter Sweeney
SUPER-slick Geelong has a habit of making visitors to Skilled Stadium look anything but skilled.
Never was it more evident than last Saturday.
But don’t think the demon of a day for Melbourne started at 2.10pm. It began three and a half hours earlier, at 10.40am.
That’s when the Geelong seconds, winners of just three of their first 14 games this season, took on the Casey Scorpions, Melbourne’s seconds side.
Casey had won eight of their 13 games and – certainly in comparison to Geelong – were flying.
But the hint that this was going to be a day with a difference – and one which would be dissected by footy fans all over the country – came by quarter-time in the dewkickers, a term of affection for “the twos”.
The Cats led the Scorpions by six goals a little after 11am. Come half time at pre-noon, and the difference had blown out to more than 10 goals.
Many were shaking their heads in disbelief.
Come the end, and there was 128 points between the sides. No need to tell you who was in the black.
Inside their rooms, Geelong’s AFL side obviously liked what it saw – and decided to get in on the act.
One had to be at Skilled Stadium, or buy a paper the following day, to know the score in the curtain-raiser. One couldn’t help know what happened on the centre stage later in the day, when Demons without fire were clawed by starving wild Cats.
Geelong’s senior side was so vicious on Melbourne – these two clubs were the first to play matches against each other way back in the 1850s – that there was to be a head coach sacked the following day.
And the performances of the two Geelongs had statisticians reaching for their books.
Between them, the two Geelongs kicked a massive 68.17. (425). The big boys booted 37.11 (233) and the ‘little leaguers’ 31.6 (192). In doing so, they restricted the two Melbournes to 17.9 (111), of which the Scorpions – who have sarcastically been dubbed as the Lowscore-pions – kicked 10.4.
In total, an amazing 85.26 (536) was kicked at Skilled Stadium on Saturday. And all bar a countable number of the 22,716 at the footy loved it.
Not so the Casey and Melbourne followers.
So what happened?
Casey coach Brad Gotch couldn’t see “it” coming – who could have? – but he was worried pre-game.
“Travelling to Geelong and playing at such an early time concerned me,” Gotch said. “And when Geelong were up and about early, I think they shellshocked our boys. They opened us up and we couldn’t work out their system. And I think our side was too big, their medium-sized boys played the ground so well.” Gotch also believes his team may have taken Geelong “too easily.”
“Football is often won and lost above the shoulders,” Gotch said.
“I had seen them (Geelong) beat Coburg and push Bendigo in the past two weeks and their position on the ladder belies how good they are,” Gotch said. “I think our boys underestimated them. But wait, there’s more. We had seven changes to the team which thrashed Frankston, Danny Nicolls was in for his first game, (Aaron) Davey back for his first game in 10 weeks, Bartram and Gawn playing their first matches in three weeks,” Gotch said.
“There were blokes back and we were coming off a bye and Melbourne had been to Darwin two weeks earlier. But there were no excuses for what happened. Performances like that have only happened two or three times in my coaching career. I put it down to an aberration. It was either that … or it’s all over (season) for us.”